The analysis of European Union (EU) foreign policy has long put much more emphasis on its ‘hardware’ dimensions (including institutional infrastructure, personnel, and military equipment) rather than on its ‘software’ dimensions (including visions, aspirations, world views, principles, norms, and beliefs). For the first five decades of the life of the EU, in all its guises, the vast majority of discussions regarding its relations with the rest of the world focused on politics, policies, and practicalities. The study of the EU’s common commercial policy, association agreements, development policy, external relations, and political cooperation, for example, was primarily concerned with ‘what were the policies?’ rather than ‘what did the policies tell us about the EU?’ Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since the agreement of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), discussions of the EU’s relations with the rest of the world have changed with an increasing emphasis placed on understanding, conceptualising, and thinking more broadly about the EU as a political entity which participates in world politics, and is partially constituted by that participation. The book in which this chapter is included is an attempt to move into a generation of scholarship which goes beyond the phases described above, and tries to think thoroughly about the way in which the EU is constituted as a political entity by the values, images and principles (VIPs) which shape the discourse and practice of the EU’s relations with the rest of the world. This endeavour is by no means unique in this respect: the volume undoubtedly stands on the shoulders of scholars who have benefited from the liberating effects of the post-Cold War academic environment to think in new ways about the ontological qualities of the EU, the way in which its policies shape our understandings of the EU, and the way in which the EU is a political and social agent embedded in, and employing, political and social institutions. The troublesome questions that the boom deals with pose many conceptual and empirical difficulties for the researcher. The very definitions of the terms employed are subject to debate, as are the theoretical relationships between the concepts. Moreover, empirical research on issues such as values and principles poses great methodological problems. The introduction deals with some of these problems. It first deals with the way that key actors in EU foreign policy, as well as academic observers, frequently refer to values, images of the world and principles that characterise the EU and (should) provide the basis for its role in world politics. It then analyses the fundamental concepts employed in the research project and presents our claim regarding the relationships among them, before turning to the theoretical and methodological research framework. The chapter closes with a presentation of the rest of the volume.
Introduction: Values, Principles, Identity and European Union Foreign Policy
LUCARELLI, SONIA
2006
Abstract
The analysis of European Union (EU) foreign policy has long put much more emphasis on its ‘hardware’ dimensions (including institutional infrastructure, personnel, and military equipment) rather than on its ‘software’ dimensions (including visions, aspirations, world views, principles, norms, and beliefs). For the first five decades of the life of the EU, in all its guises, the vast majority of discussions regarding its relations with the rest of the world focused on politics, policies, and practicalities. The study of the EU’s common commercial policy, association agreements, development policy, external relations, and political cooperation, for example, was primarily concerned with ‘what were the policies?’ rather than ‘what did the policies tell us about the EU?’ Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since the agreement of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), discussions of the EU’s relations with the rest of the world have changed with an increasing emphasis placed on understanding, conceptualising, and thinking more broadly about the EU as a political entity which participates in world politics, and is partially constituted by that participation. The book in which this chapter is included is an attempt to move into a generation of scholarship which goes beyond the phases described above, and tries to think thoroughly about the way in which the EU is constituted as a political entity by the values, images and principles (VIPs) which shape the discourse and practice of the EU’s relations with the rest of the world. This endeavour is by no means unique in this respect: the volume undoubtedly stands on the shoulders of scholars who have benefited from the liberating effects of the post-Cold War academic environment to think in new ways about the ontological qualities of the EU, the way in which its policies shape our understandings of the EU, and the way in which the EU is a political and social agent embedded in, and employing, political and social institutions. The troublesome questions that the boom deals with pose many conceptual and empirical difficulties for the researcher. The very definitions of the terms employed are subject to debate, as are the theoretical relationships between the concepts. Moreover, empirical research on issues such as values and principles poses great methodological problems. The introduction deals with some of these problems. It first deals with the way that key actors in EU foreign policy, as well as academic observers, frequently refer to values, images of the world and principles that characterise the EU and (should) provide the basis for its role in world politics. It then analyses the fundamental concepts employed in the research project and presents our claim regarding the relationships among them, before turning to the theoretical and methodological research framework. The chapter closes with a presentation of the rest of the volume.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
