Orchestration and Relationality in the European Union's Foreign Policy

Based on the EU Strategy for International and Cultural Relations, culture is seen as the key to building long-term relationships and mutual understanding, as well as the ‘engine for economic and social development’ (EC 2016, 2018). While this ‘strategic turn’ places culture in a central position in current foreign policies, the role of networks, societal and institutional actors in these strategies have been only vaguely addressed in the academic literature. Therefore, this paper aims to address the role of networks in the EU’s cultural relations and foreign policies. While the role of networks has been long in the focus of the theoretical and empirical research of governance, network analysis is mainly engaged with the inquiry of the different types of nodes and ties, but fails to address the processes. Thus, relational approaches can offer new insights into the complexity and dynamics of networks. To address the role of networks in the EU’s cultural strategy through relational dynamics, the paper builds on the concept of orchestration. Orchestration is a mode of governance, where a set of actors enlists and supports intermediary actors on a voluntary basis by providing them with ideational and material support to pursue their governance goals. Orchestration is framed as an indirect, and soft mode of governance as it acts through intermediaries, but does not have control over them. Intermediaries are involved through various orchestration techniques, such as assistance, endorsement, convening and coordination (Abbott et al. 2012; Genschel et al. 2018; Müller et al. 2020). Therefore, this paper will conceptualise orchestration in the EU’s foreign policy, followed by an outline of relational exchanges in the policy field, between the various policy actors. The paper suggests, that transnational and knowledge networks fulfil a central role as intermediaries between an orchestrator (EU) and a target set of actors (civil society) in the delivery of the strategic approach. Through this theoretical lens, the paper aims to address relationality in the realm of foreign policy as well as uncover the relational dimensions of these policy processes. References Abbott, K. W., Genschel, P., Snidal, D., & Zangl, B. (2015). Orchestration: Global governance through intermediaries. In International Organizations as Orchestrators, edited by Abbott et al., 3–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. European Commission. (2016). Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council. Towards an EU Strategy for International Cultural Relations. JOIN/2016/029 final, Brussels. European Commission. (2018). Communication From The Commission To The European Parliament, The European Council, The Council, The European Economic And Social Committee And The Committee Of The Regions A New European Agenda For Culture. COM/2018/267 final Genschel, P., & Jachtenfuchs, M. (2018). From market integration to core state powers: the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis and integration theory. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 56(1), 178-196. Müller, P., & Slominski, P. (2020). Breaking the legal link but not the law? The externalization of EU migration control through orchestration in the Central Mediterranean. Journal of European Public Policy, 1-20.