"Assessing EU foreign policy in the UN: capacity, identity, and context."

Laatikainen, Katie Verlin. (2003) "Assessing EU foreign policy in the UN: capacity, identity, and context.". In: UNSPECIFIED, Nashville, Tennessee. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[From the Introduction]. This paper explores the growing role of the European Union within the United Nations by establishing its capacity, identity, and context. The first and largest part of the paper uses the concept of "actorness" developed by Caporaso and Jupille to provide empirical evidence of the growing capacity of the EU to speak with one voice at the UN (Caporaso and Jupille, 1998). The authority, cohesion, recognition and autonomy of the EU as an actor in its own right are detailed and it is shown that while the EU foreign policy within the EU is authoritative, cohesive and broadly recognized, the' autonomy of the EU as an actor remains problematic. The paper then explores the identity of the EU with in the UN, its corporate identity. EU foreign policy represents particular values quite often associated with the notion of "civilian power." Finally, the last section of the paper explores the context of United Nations for EU foreign policy. The multilateral environment, as opposed to EU "bilateral" or regional relations, is particularly congenial for the articulation of a common foreign policy. In addition, there are institutional factors that account for the expanding scope of EU influence in the world body. The paper makes extensive use of UN documents to present the growing capacity of the EU as well as dozens of interviews conducted in New York over the past three and a half years to gauge the impact of the EU's foreign policy in the UN context.

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