European Union Foreign Policy - From Effectiveness to Functionality

This book aims to change the way we think about the European Union's foreign policy. From the crisis in the Ukraine to the civil wars in Iraq and Syria, discussions of the EU's foreign policy tend to focus around its effectiveness. This book argues that effectiveness is the wrong standard by which to assess this policy area. To do so is simply to repeat clichés about the EU 'punching below its weight' or lacking coherence. This book proposes an alternative framework that investigates the internal functions that shape EU foreign policymaking. These include the management of institutional rivalries within the EU and the task of building a European identity. Understood in this way, the question of whether EU foreign policy 'works' is replaced with the question of 'what is it for?' and 'what functions does it serve?'

Introduction 1. Functionality in EU Foreign Policy: A Framework of Analysis 2. Managing Ambivalence: National Foreign Policy in an Age of 'Power Avoidance' 3. The Politics of Performance: Turf Battles in EU Foreign Policy 4. Normative Power and the EU's Search for Meaning 5. Saving the Union? EU Foreign Policy and the Democratic Deficit Conclusion