Debates about the EU’s international ‘actorness’ have been around for quite some time. Starting in the late 1970s, scholars have searched for concepts that are able to account for the unique role that the Union plays in the global system – and continue to do so. The according analytical frameworks are however often too specific, or overly complicated and relying on too many hardly delimitable factors. In my paper, I propose a straightforward, but nevertheless exhaustive framework for analysis, merely comprising two factors: internal self-conception and external recognition. Drawing on the tenets of social constructivism, I argue that these are sufficient to identify an actor in the international system. The advantages of this approach are that a) it overcomes the ‘sui generis’ debate of the EU as it can be applied to nation-states and international organisations alike, and b) that it allows for a issue-specific analysis of EU actorness.
