Political Science Foreign Policy Theory

¶ … Political Science Foreign Policy

Theory

The matter of personal and national security has been a long lasting one throughout history. Leaders were selected and favored due to their ability to safeguard the interests and well-being of the peoples. States with lower levels of security would be attacked and conquered by larger and better developed countries.

While we would like to think that armed conflict is no longer applicable as a means of resolving disputes and that the references to national insecurity refer the times of the Roman or Ottoman empires, fact remains that international disputes continue to be present through today. Just remember Vietnam, the Gulf War, the ongoing wars in the Middle East or the most recent War on Terrorism, as forwarded by the Bush administration.

Given this context, one can easily come to the conclusion that we live in a dangerous world and that our safety and well-being could easily be disrupted. The question that is being posed at this level refers to the actions which could be taken in order to reduce the incidence of armed conflicts and further increase national security. Each country implements a different approach, as they see fit. While one party decides to intervene in the conflict and help end it, another party will choose to remain aside. Each of these stands attracts both praises as well as criticism. On the one hand, the interfering country could be blamed for following personal interests in its interference, the most eloquent case being the intervention of the American troops in the Middle East and the perception that they did this so that the country could gain access to the region's oil reserves. On the other hand, remaining aside and neutral to an interstate conflict could bring about criticism of the manifested lack of care for international safety and stability.

Regardless of each perception, the actual stand a country takes is directly pegged to the nature of its security policies. The aim of this report is then that of assessing the foreign security policies promoted by the European Union. The importance of the topic is given by the fact that security issues impact each and every one of us and the interesting element about this particular research on the EU is given by their past actions in situations of international insecurity.

From an economic standpoint, and measured by the size of the gross domestic product, the European Union is the largest international player. This makes it an incredible force within the global context. Nevertheless, despite this great power, the EU has remained rather distant to matters of international security and has often delayed taking an official stand relative to emerged conflicts, or even a decision on how to handle it.

Given this status quo, it would be interesting to reveal some of the most pivotal policies of the European Union relative to security. The theory at the basis of the research is however that these policies are rather prudential and passive, in the meaning of not promoting pro-active approaches. This theory is based on historical observations of the European Union's approach to conflicts, such as the fights in Somalia, where the United Nations and the United States intervened promptly, but where the European Union delayed action. The reticence to the War on Terrorism is also a relevant example of the rather "held back" approach of the EU to international insecurity.

Having presented the importance of the topic, as well as the elements which raise the curiosity of the observer, it is now necessary to reveal the variables of the equation. The dependent variable is the European Union's security policy and the independent variables refer to interstate collaboration with the field of foreign and security policies, the international context, including the security policies of the United States of America, United Nations or other global entities, or the internal characteristics of EU's member states. The premise for commencing the research is that each of these three variables generates an impact upon the security policy. These three hypotheses will be revealed throughout the third section.

B. Literature Review

The first step to be taken in any research endeavor is that of assessing the already existent materials with the intent of revealing the major research areas or the pivotal variables. In achieving this desiderate, it is necessary to review at least three articles, all presenting features of the European Union's security policies.

B.1. Explaining Government Preferences for Institutional Change in EU Foreign and Security Policy

This first article was written by Mathias Koenig-Archibugi in 2004 and was published in the International Organization journal, the 58th volume, first number, under the aegis of the Cambridge University Press. Koenig-Archibugi currently teaches courses in global politics at the London School of Economics.

Explaining Government Preferences… is a complex and lengthy article detailing the reasons which determine different perceptions relative to political cooperation between the EU's member states. Koenig-Archibugi begins at the premises that the fifteen, at the time, members of the European Union reveal different perceptions relative to the possibility of an integrated stand in terms of foreign policy and security. Otherwise put, while some countries declare in favor of an integrated stand, united under the umbrella of the European Union, other countries militate for independency in terms of foreign and security policy.

Given this situation, a question is being posed relative to what determines these different perceptions of an integrated vs. A divided policy of security. Mathias Koenig-Archibugi strives to answer this question by looking at four independent and one dependent variable. His considered independent variables are:

The role of relative power capabilities

National interests linked to foreign policy

The strength of the European culture as perceived by individual nations, and fourth

The internal governance structures which determine the preference relative to the integrated or independent security policy

The dependent variable is the resulting perception relative to the country's stand on security policies, whether they should be integrated and uniform for the entire European Union, or whether they ought to be independent and reflect the individual stand of each country.

Mathias Koenig-Archibugi retrieves his information from a wide series of sources, meaning that the complexity of the article's data source increases the work's reliability and relevance within the current context and helps better explain the perception of the states relative to a potentially uniform security policy. The data source can be divided into two categories. First of all, there is the theoretical evidence, represented by the works of other economists and political experts, such as Thomas Banchoff's German Identity and European Integration, Robert O. Keohane's After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy and many more. The second set of data source is constituted by primary sources which deal directly with the national perceptions of the EU member states. Official documents are retrieved on fourteen countries and reveal the official positions of the government. These countries are (in alphabetic order): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The article leads the reader to three major conclusions. First of all, it indicates that the governments of weaker states are more willing to accept an integrated security policy that the governments of stronger states. Secondly, countries with multilayer governmental structures are more likely to embrace supranational foreign and security policy than the countries which perceive leadership as indivisible. The remaining two variables did not generate a quantifiable impact on the national perception of an integrated approach to foreign and security policy.

B.2. The End of Architecture and the New NATO

Paul Cornish's article was featured in the October edition (1996) of the International Affairs journal, published by Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. The underlying question refers to the elements which trigged the massive debate of 1996 in terms of the European stand to security policies. Additionally, it strives to answer the question relative to the prospective future of the notions and policies relating to European Security and Defense Identity. In answering the questions, Cornish assess the evolution of the three institutions which shaped policies in European security in the aftermath of the Cold War -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western European Union and the more recent European Union. He also assesses the relations which developed and changed between these three entities.

Similar to the previous article, the End of Architecture and the New NATO is constructed on a complex data source, including both secondary as well as primary sources. Some of the secondary sources of information include J. Solana's NATO in Transition, a. Menon's From Independence to Cooperation: France, NATO and the European Security, or various other articles from specialized journals and magazines, such as the Economist, the Independent, Foreign Report or Financial Times. The usage of primary resources is fairly limited in comparison to the amount of sources introduced by Explaining Government Preferences…Nevertheless, some notable components of this set of data sources are represented by communicates of the North Atlantic Council, the Treaty of the European Union or other political declarations. Interestingly enough, it can be observed that the usage of books as sources of material is relatively reduced in both articles.

After a series of analyses, Paul Cornish comes to the conclusion that, despite the tremendous international movements and advances, the security policy of the European Union remains unclear. The main reasons for this uncertainty are given primarily by the difficultly in predicting the country's subjection to any military threats, the changing shape and size of the European Union or the opaque interests of the formation. What does however improve the stand is the adherence of the EU member states to NATO, which remains the most credible security organization across the globe.

Given this situation, the political approach of the overall European continent to security issues seems to be mostly influenced by NATO, rather than the Western European Union or the European Union. This context led to a situation in which the member states of the European Union became aligned with the ideologies of cooperation. In the words of the author, "the European security dialectic seems to have come closer than ever before to the realization that the specters of 'inefficiency' and 'duplication' are to be found not so much in Europeans and Americans building more tanks and combat aircrafts than are jointly needed, but in sustaining more institutions that are required, and in devising ever more complex arrangements by which these institutions may cooperate" (Cornish, 1996). This conclusion may well be extrapolated to explain the less pro-active stand taken by the European Union in answering to the global security challenges.

B.3. Developing the Common Foreign and Security Policy

Similar to the previous article, Developing the Common Foreign and Security Policy was published within the journal of International Affairs, under the aegis of Blackwell Publishing. It was documented and written by Douglas Hurd and featured within the 70th volume, 3rd number, of the 1994 series. It is the most compact of the three, but its findings are nevertheless conclusive and relevant, due to both the usage of reliable sources, as well as the vast expertise of the writer, who occupied the position of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

The core question in Hurd's study is in fact a simple one, relating to the very self of the European Union's foreign and security policy. What is however compelling is the four-sided nature of the question, in the meaning that the author strives to identify the origins of the policy, its development through time, its present characteristics and manifestation, as well as future potential for implementation.

Unlike the previous two works, Hurd's article does not come to an end with a section on concluding remarks which would round up and restate the most important findings of the research. These can nevertheless be identified by looking at the actual analysis. In this order of ideas, the author of the article identifies the following:

European cooperation for foreign policy issues began in 1970

Throughout middle 1980s, a treaty was signed for European cooperation in the fields of foreign and security policies

The evolution has manifested in the convergence of the national security and foreign policy goals

The future of the common foreign and security policy depends strictly on the human efforts towards sustained collaboration.

Not only in terms of structure is this last article different from the previous two ones, but also in terms of its data source. While the previous two articles were based on tens of resources, Hurd's only one secondary source is David Heathcoat'Amory's the World Todays, which is however only mentioned as a readers' note for further information. What is however notable is that the work commences with the study conducted by the same author throughout 1981. Those findings are considered in light of the evolutionary forces which manifested and are corroborated with additional data retrieved through direct observation. In this order of ideas, the second source used by the author is his own Political Co-operation, featured in the 57th volume of the International Affairs journal, series of 1981.

The usage of so few literary sources could negatively impact the credibility of the final product. Nevertheless, looking through different lenses, the limited data source could enhance the article's credibility in the meaning that the information is retrieved through direct observation, and that the findings are not biased by the personal opinions of other researchers.

C. Data Source

In conducting the research on the security policies implemented by the European Union, several sources will be assessed. What it is however important to note is that while the sources to be hereby presented do indeed represent the backbone of the actual research, once the process commences, it is possible for new materials to be included, in order to answer new questions, as they emerge. These being said, it is crucial to present some of the actual sources to be consulted: