The Problem of Leadership in EU Foreign Policy: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches

Abstract

The problem of leadership in EU foreign policy has become a central research problem in the wake of a number of political developments in recent years. The formal leadership function in EU foreign policy and external relations was profoundly reformed with the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. However, the EU’s lacklustre response to international events, particularly the Arab Spring of 2011, demonstrates that the enactment of a leadership role is deeply problematic and complex in EU foreign policy. While most observers will agree that leadership is necessary for overcoming the collective action problem in multilateral European foreign policy, there is less agreement on the precise meaning of what constitutes effective leadership. Which types of actors are able to exercise leadership in European foreign policy? How are the internal dynamics of leadership reflected in the EU’s external ambitions to play a leadership role in world politics? How do external role prescriptions of leadership influence European foreign policy action? When, why and how do material and ideational factors influence perceptions of a leadership role? What types of leadership are considered legitimate in European foreign policy? The aim of this panel is to examine these questions from a number of theoretical and empirical approaches by leading scholars in the field of European foreign policy analysis. Leadership is a contested concept in theories of International Relations, European integration and Foreign Policy Analysis. This panel therefore encourages a debate on the divide that permeates leadership studies on the agency-structure problem, that is, whether leadership is best understood and explained by focusing on the role played by individual actors, or alternatively by the structural and institutional context which enables and/or constrains leadership.

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