German Power and EU Crisis-Management: Comparing Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, Germany has assumed a strong leadership role within the European Union, which has surprisingly been accepted by most other EU member states. This is all the more puzzling considering that in a similar crisis-situation, namely during the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, Germany has stayed in the background and France, a traditional foreign policy actor within the EU, has assumed the position of a European crisis-manager. How to explain this variance in EU crisis-management and what conclusions can be drawn about how Germany’s role in EU policy towards Russia has developed over time? Is Germany's leadership role during the Ukraine conflict an expression of increasing German engagement and power in EU foreign policy, as announced by leading German politicians? By applying the power taxonomy of power by Barnett and Duvall (2005), this paper aims to disentangle and to compare the various ‘shades’ of German power exertion within the EU during the Georgia and Ukraine conflict. Which instruments of power have been applied and which others have been left out, leading to a variance in crisis-management leadership? Which role have European institutions and actors played in 2008 and 2014? The aim is to bring back power as a category into the analysis of member states’ relations within EU foreign policy and crisis-management, arguing with Della Sala (2012) that power politics have only been tamed, but not from excluded from the European project.