EU normative power and the Iranian nuclear program

no, author (2015) EU normative power and the Iranian nuclear program. [Conference Proceedings] (Submitted)

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Abstract

Ian Manners has proposed the concept of European Union normative power: the ability of the EU to change what is ‘normal’ in international relations. The EU-led international negotiations with Iran aimed at preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons may provide an example of EU normative power in action. In his 2002 state of the union address, president George W Bush included Iran in an ‘axis of evil’, a move which appeared to raise the possibility of an American military intervention against Iran. In response to the alarm raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency report on the Iranian nuclear program in 2003, and in the context of deep divisions in Europe over the US intervention in Iraq, European leaders sought to reassert the EU as an actor in international relations, deliberately setting out to make the Iran nuclear issue a test case for the EU norms of negotiation, engagement, multilateralism and conformity with international law. In the place of military confrontation, the EU guided the international community along a path of patient negotiations and economic sanctions. Initially sceptical, the US eventually took on a leadership role in this normative approach, which ultimately contributed to a change in the political climate in Iran and the signing of an interim accord in November 2013. If, as appears likely, a final agreement eventuates, the Iran case could constitute an example of the EU influencing the practice of international relations, and hence an instance of EU normative actorness.

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