“Competing pressures and compliance costs: an analysis of foreign policy change in the EU”.

Foreign policy change is a popular subject of study within International Relations, especially Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). Theoretical models have been devised which focus on the combination of endogenous and exogenous pressures to bring about foreign policy change. Moreover, compliance costs are also cited among the factors influencing leaders’ decisions to change their position in a specific policy area. However, the European Union, and European Defence and Security in particular, have often been neglected by these theoretical approaches, with little focus on the complex decisionmaking procedures in Brussels. This paper argues that the recent decision by EU member states to adopt the ReArm EU plan is caused by a combination of external (i.e., Russian invasion of Ukraine) and institutional (EU’s system of values, beliefs, and practices) pressures. This is the case because, as a result of these competing and complementary pressures, political compliance costs for leaders decrease, and it becomes easier for them to implement change without alienating public opinions. By conducting interviews with public officials and decisionmakers, and by using thematic analysis and process tracing as the main methods of data analysis, this paper will aim to show that integration is stronger in the EU in times of crisis or heightened perceived threat. The timeframe refers to the post 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent adoption, by the European Commission, of the ReArm EU plan in early 2025, but it might be extended to comprehend the period after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. This is because it might be easier to draw conclusions and causally infer about events that happened years ago, rather than more recent ones. Given its research question and methods of analysis, this work has also the objective of contributing to the debate about what kind of international actor the UE might become, how and whether its role changes during times of crises, and whether a permanent change, leading to a more integrated European defence, might alter the relations between EU and NATO. How will a change of approach by leaders within the EU make them modify their position within NATO? To what extent can the EU modify its role in the international system as a result of external shocks? These are some sub-questions the paper will seek to answer to contribute to these debates. The originality of this paper comes from the decision to use FPA within the EU context. Models about foreign policy change within FPA have a great, but still unexplored, potential of being applied to the study of the EU decision making process. This is because of the different layers of power involved in Brussels, each one of them receiving different pressures and inputs from outside and contributing to those "institutional pressures” cited above. Foreign policy change within FPA, in other words, enable the study of EU decisionmaking in all its complexity, without losing inferential and explanatory power.