Institutional Power Europe: A Comprehensive Conceptualisation of the EU as a power?

Abstract

One of the most persistent theoretical controversies in the study the European Union (EU) is how to conceptualise this 'unidentified political object' as an actor in world politics. In 2002, Ian Manners revolutionised the debate by presenting the EU as 'Normative Power Europe': in his view, Europe was an actor that exercised a different kind of power than traditional states, namely normative power. This thesis problematises Normative Power Europe as well as its main rival, the realist 'State Power Europe' view. It develops a novel theoretical framework rooted in the neofunctionalism of Ernst B. Haas, and tests this framework against two 'least likely' case studies: Europe's international campaign for death penalty abolition, and the evolution of the CSDP. These case studies are usually used in support of respectively Normative Power and State Power, and are thus not only good empirical tests, but also problematisations of the existing views. The conclusion is that in conceptualising Europe's approach to international affairs, we may best speak of a reliance on 'institutional power'.