Placing Normative Power Europe in a Global Context

This article focuses on the constructed nature of the EU's so-called 'normative power' (NPEU). It proposes that, while a successful construction of NPEU would secure a role for the EU globally, challenges to NPEU constructions would disem-power any EU attempts at its global reach based on such projections. The Middle East conflict is taken as a case in point.

It has been common in recent years to contrast modern and classical international law-making, depicting the former as dynamic and heterogeneous, and the latter, as state-centric and “doctrinal.” This doctrinal image is characterized as state-centric both in terms of the actors involved in rule-making processes and the nature of the rules themselves. In short, an actor’s ability to make law is limited by their international legal personality, whilst the rules which result have legal “pedigree” only if traceable to one or more of the formal sources of international law. Accordingly, doctrinal understandings are often depicted negatively as cementing the hegemony of the state as (almost) the sole international law-maker. However, the argument that I wish to defend in this paper is that these kinds of characterization of doctrinal approaches not only fail to grasp the openness of international law to other actors as participants in international law-making processes, but also miss what is important about doctrine in the context of international law. Accordingly, the central question posed in this paper is how international law should accommodate the increasingly complex array of actors involved in normative standard setting (rule-making) within the international legal system, including how it absorbs or understands the nature of those rules themselves. In particular, I want to consider to what extent one can retain a formalist (doctrinal) understanding of the subjects and sources of international law yet at the same time account for the array of actors involved in post-national rule-making. I will argue that any attempt to absorb within international law the range of actors and forms of normativity that exist as a result of the increasing “institutionalization” that has occurred throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries creates a significant tension between legal form and function, particularly with regard to the roles which many of these regimes and institutions have come to fulfil within the international system. Nevertheless, I will argue that this tension between form and function is an important part of securing some measure of legal accountability in a decentralized legal order such as international law.

2019

This paper addresses some of the conceptual challenges that internationalisation of the rule of law creates for its conventional political and legal doctrines. It is first of all submitted that domestic and international jurisprudence exist and develop as two ‘pocket universes’ in a sense that they belong to the same fabric of reality and share some of the fundamental features, but at the same time many concepts shift their meaning when moved from one pocket to another. This is of a paramount importance for the idea of the rule of law, which in domestic setting was forged in the flame of civil wars and struggles against the absolute powers of kings, princes, and nobles. This history and such struggles are something international law has never known, and for this reason any direct transplantation of the domestic images of the rule of law to international realm are doomed to fail. This entails a need in deconstructing the rule of law and stripping it down of ideological and historical layers. Its core meaning, though seemingly trivial (‘laws must be obeyed’), brings a normative claim relevant to any legal order. For the subjects to obey the law, it must at the very least provide for the practical opportunity of obedience, i.e. law’s claim to authority must be realisable. From such a perspective, the idea of the (international) rule of law appears to be linked to the idea of authority of (international) law. The article further addresses the differences of the structures of authority in domestic and international law by submitting that authority can be mediated or unmediated. Mediation of authority, typical for domestic law, presupposes the existence of officials that are functionally and institutionally differentiated from the subjects of law; this picture of authority also grounds the narrative of the rule of law as developing from ‘thin’ to ‘thick’. Authority of international law is by and large unmediated because of its horizontal nature, which also entails that the metaphor of ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ rule of law is of little relevance here; both formal and substantive virtues of law count together and may get interchanged as pieces of Lego. Such reconstruction allows to reframe the central concern of the international rule of law enquiries. Instead of trying to fit it to the procrustean bed of domestic theories, international legal scholarship must focus on defining conditions under which international law’s claim to authority is realisable.

Marmara Üniversitesi Avrupa Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Avrupa araştırmaları dergisi, 2021

This paper discusses the role of the European Union (EU) as a normative power in a pluralising international society after the demise of the "liberal moment" in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. It suggests that the traditional understanding of normative power (NPE 1.0) was normatively problematic as it was infused with othering practices and led to the neglect of the EU's own shortcomings. Thus, the demise of NPE 1.0 may be seen as an opportunity to re-articulate normative power rather than abandon it. The paper attempts such a re-articulation building on elements in the EU's own official narrative, including Commission President von der Leyen's "geopolitical Commission" and the concept of "principled pragmatism" in the EU Global Strategy. It is premised on the assumption that although the von der Leyen Commission seems to have taken a realist turn, such a turn continues to be contested and open to alternatives.

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2011

The concept of 'Normative Power Europe' (NPE) has become very popular for analysing the foreign policy and external relations of the European Union (EU). There is, however, confusion about what 'normative power' actually means, which is why the debate over whether the EU actually is or is not a normative power has not always been as fruitful as it could be. This article proposes two necessary starting points for more constructive discussion: a distinction between 'normative' and 'normal', and a distinction between 'power as a powerful actor' and 'power as ability to cause effects'. Furthermore, the article distinguishes between 'normative identity', 'normative interests', 'normative behaviour', 'normative means of power' and 'normative outcomes' as separate features of a normative power. There are also at least four different mechanisms through which normative power is exercised: by persuasion, by invoking norms, by shaping the discourse and by leading through example. The article concludes that normative power is best seen as an ideal type-one which the EU approximates more closely than other great powers.

2015

The European Union is currently in the process of defi ning its position in the international arena. European integration, especially in the context of foreign affairs, has proved to be a challenging experience, as revealed in more than one crisis. In the empirical scope, this refers mostly to the lack of unity and cohesion between the Member States in reacting to and/or resolving international issues, which results from the diversity of interests presented by the Member States. In the theoretical scope, the main issue lies in establishing the characteristic traits of the European Union in international relations. The popular concept of the European Union acting as a ‘normative power’ in international crises fails to satisfy a number of important aspects. In such a context there is a need to develop more precise and politically neutral instruments to analyse the European Union’s activities in the international sphere.

Constellations, 2011

The EU is a sui generis power in international relations that is difficult to specify or merely limit to one specific kind of power. Accordingly, the discourses of the EU as a normative power, civilian power or civilizing power can all be attributed to the EU and simultaneously they can be all criticized in their own merits. However, the EU has still been regarded as a normative power, despite the criticisms against it. In addition to its representation as a power or as a positive factor in holistic terms in a fallacious way, the EU is also honored with Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. Despite its failures or ineffectiveness in global issues, the EU is seen as a positive factor or as a deus ex machina that solves all the problems at once. It should be underlined that the EU is a power but not such a prominent one as it is claimed. The EU represents itself as a responsible neighbor; yet where this responsibility ends remains as an essential question. This paper claims that the EU's representation as such a powerful or normative entity laden with values accentuates the differences between the EU and the countries, which have relations with the EU as in the case of Egypt. The Union's relations with Egypt; its role and power – if there is any-in the process of Arab Uprisings can be taken as a case to show how the EU's representation as a deus ex machina is fallacious.

What actors make of norms matters, in particular, in situations of crisis when the contextual conditions for norm interpretation are enhanced. That is, situations of crisis add an additional factor of pressure next to the conditions of normative contingency and moving the social practice of governance beyond the boundaries of modern states. The addition of time requires fast decisions thus leaving little room for deliberation about a norm’s meaning. Contrary to the expectation that based on an increasing constitutional quality in beyond-the-state contexts, actors can build on and refer to a set of formally and informally shared principles for information and guidance in designing common action and policies, we hold that norm interpretation in international relations is challenged by the absence of cultural background information. If this observation holds, it follows that the often observed constitutional quality beyond the state which includes the formalization of the role of inter...

International law is a European tradition. Nevertheless, like many other European traditions, it imagines itself as universal. Throughout its history, it has been associated with projects such as Christianity, secular statehood, enlightenment, 'civilization', free trade and human rights. International law's association with particular ideas or preferences does not, however, even slightly undermine it. There are no authentic universals that one could know independently of their particular manifestations. The key question is a political one: Are there good reasons for extending the scope of such ideas or preferences? Answering this question may not have been assisted by the turning of some of them into kitsch. But is that the condition of their universality?