Mediating the European Model: A critical analysis of the European Union's foreign policy response to the Syrian conflict (2011-ongoing)

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MEDIATING THE EUROPEAN MODEL:

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION’S

FOREIGN POLICY RESPONSE TO THE SYRIAN

CONFLICT (2011-ONGOING)

Name: RUXANDRA CRISTINA STANCIU (s1893572)

Supervisor: STEF WITTENDORP Second reader: JELLE VAN BUUREN

Thesis in fulfilment of the M.Sc. Crisis and Security Management at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, campus The Hague, at Leiden University.

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Abstract

The EU has deemed the promotion of peace to be a key element of its foreign policy mission, thus committing to a comprehensive approach to conflict resolution. However, as a mediator in the Syrian conflict (2011-ongoing), the EU has failed so far to advance the peace talks. This has raised questions about the EU’s claim to be a global actor, especially one with an agenda for fostering peace. Consequently, this thesis examines the EU’s self-conceptualised role in matters of conflict resolution and determines the extent to which the EU’s mediation engagement in Syria is reflective of that. The analysis suggests that the EU could not promote peace in Syria as a global actor. Some of the main reasons for the lack of actorness can be identified in the institutional architecture of the CFSP, but also in the uncoordinated manner in which the EU has made use of its foreign policy toolbox. If the EU is not able to devise a strategy that allows it to stand firm by its values, to address the root causes of the conflict and also to increase its leverage in this conflict context that is shaped by multiple international actors, then it will see its role in Syria limited to humanitarian actions.

Key words: global actorness; normative power Europe; international conflict mediation; Syrian conflict; CFSP.

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List of abbreviations

CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy

DA Discourse Analysis

EC European Commission

EEAS European External Action Service

EIDHR European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights

ENP European Neighbourhood Policy

EP European Parliament

ESDP European Security and Defence Policy

ESS European Security Strategy

EU European Union

EUCGE The European Union in a Changing Global Environment EUGS Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy

HR High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy IcSP Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace

ISSG International Syria Support Group

UN United Nations

UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution

USA United States of America

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CHAPTER 1: Introduction

1.1 Situation of the problem

The European Union (EU) has often reiterated its commitment to pursuing peace in its neighbourhood and beyond (European Commission, 2013a; European Council, 2003; EEAS, 2016a; EU, 2004). However, it appears that the EU has failed in its peace efforts in the case of the Syrian conflict (2011-ongoing). Pierini (2016:1) notes that the disagreement between the EU members over the best course of action has left the EU ‘in a second-tier position among international actors’. Meanwhile, the outbreak of the war in Syria has posed tremendous humanitarian, economic and security challenges to most EU states (Pawlak, 2016; Turkmani and Haid, 2016).

Currently, the EU is a member of the International Syria Support Group, chaired by the USA and Russia, with the aim of finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Despite its participation in this working group and its contributions to the mitigation of the conflict in the form of sanctions and significant technical and financial assistance, the EU seems to have yielded little political influence over the developments in Syria (Pawlak, 2016:8; Pierini 2016; Seeberg, 2015). This comes in striking contradiction to the EU’s self-perception as ‘a global actor’ which claims its commitment ‘to share in the responsibility for global security and in building a better world’ (European Council, 2003). The apparent discrepancy between EU’s self-assumed role in the international domain and its actual response to the Syrian conflict requires more scrutiny, as some evidence suggests that through its broad approach to mediation the EU might have positively influenced local processes. Turkmani and Haid (2016:20-21), for instance, argue that the EU has contributed to several local ceasefires and to the enhancement of civic power through the funding of good governance programmes. Consequently, this thesis aims to assess the EU’s role as global peacemaker, with particular focus on the conflict mediation experience in Syria, and to uncover the foreign policy constrains and opportunities which shape its performance.

1.2 Theoretical framework

1.2.1 International actorness

One of the most influential inquiries into the EU’s – then European Community- ‘actor capability’ was conducted by Gunnar Sjöstedt in 1977. Sjöstedt (1977:66) defined actorness as ‘the capacity to behave actively and deliberately in relation to other actors in the international system’. This definition accounted for the whole range of international capabilities of the European Community in different policy areas, while also recognising that the European Community possessed some of the traits of a conventional actor in the international system, yet lacked others. Sjöstedt’s main criteria for actorness entail: 1) delimitation from other actors; 2) autonomy for action (or sovereignty); and 3) the possession of certain state-like characteristics, including a community of interests, and a system for controlling resources and for crisis management. Hence, Sjöstedt essentially claimed that actorness required having

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a considerable degree of state-like features. Groenleer and van Schaik (2007:970) remark that this interpretation has resulted in supranational EU policy-making processes being associated with a higher likelihood of actorness, while the intergovernmentalism of the foreign policy-making process has been deemed to lower the chance of EU actorness, as each of the Member States could veto decisions. Furthermore, Niemann and Bretherton (2013:265) observe that Sjöstedt’s framework can be applied to the EU’s external action in general, but is hard to operationalize in order to examine specific cases.

An alternative conceptualisation is provided by Jupille and Caporaso (1998), who seek to allow for the determination of the EU’s status as an actor in a given structural context. Their four criteria for ascertaining actorness are: 1) recognition - entailing acceptance and interaction by and with the organization, other members and third parties; 2) authority – the legal mandate to act in a policy realm; 3) autonomy – understood as institutional distinctiveness and independence from other actors in terms of goal formation, policy-making and implementation; and 4) cohesion – comprising several dimensions, including value, tactical, procedural and output cohesion. These criteria are not absolute, thus emphasizing that actorness is a matter of degree. However, Niemann and Bretherton (2013:266) argue that while Jupille’s and Caporaso’s (1998) framework is suitable for adaptation and application, it overlooks subtle, inter-subjective processes that enable or constrain the EU in exercising power and authority in the international realm. For a constructivist analysis, as this thesis aims to conduct, these processes are essential in understanding the EU’s actorness.

The framework proposed by Bretherton and Vogler (2006), the one employed in this thesis, allows to study the EU as ‘an actor under construction’. This accounts for the complex set of processes and identities -encapsulated by notions of presence, opportunity and capability-, which combine in different ways to shape the EU’s external performance (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:24). As such, the choice of this framework is based on its advantage of enabling the examination of the varying extent of the EU’s actorness over time and in different policy areas. The indicators of actorness are:

 Opportunity – ‘denotes factors in the external environment of ideas and events, which constrain or enable actorness’

 Presence – ‘an indication of the EU’s structural power […] combines understandings about the fundamental nature or identity of the EU and the (often unintended) consequences of the Union’s internal priorities and policies’

 Capability – ‘the internal context of EU external action – the availability of policy instruments and understandings about the Union’s ability to utilise these instruments’

(Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:24) The opportunity indicator allows for the analysis of the EU’s structural environment -as proposed by Hype-Price (2006)-, but also of the dynamic processes through which Member States’ collective understandings of the EU’s role and of the implications of external conflicts–both normatively and strategically as Pohl (2013) argues-, shape the EU’s context of action.

The presence indicator allows for the examination of two interconnected factors which influence how external audiences perceive the EU’s structural power and appeal. The first factor has to do with

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the character and identity of the EU. That is how the EU’s material existence –institutions, political mechanisms etc.- supports the advancement of its self-defined role and policy priorities. The second factor accounts for how the EU’s internal policies can have unintended external repercussions, leading to conflicting internal and external policy goals (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006). Overall, the ‘presence’ indicator enables an assessment of the EU’s normative power, not simply in terms of how the EU might act as such, but, as Bretherton and Vogler (2006:27) propose, in terms of its ability to actually project power beyond its borders by shaping ‘perceptions, expectations and behaviour of others’.

Lastly, the capability indicator makes it possible to analyse the internal context which determines the EU’s action or inaction toward a certain conflict. It allows identifying the aspects of the policy process which leads the EU to mediate a conflict and if so by what means. The capability indicator assesses: (1) the EU members’ ‘shared commitment to a set of overarching values’, (2) the ‘domestic legitimation of decision processes and priorities relating to external policy’, (3) the consistency and coherence of the EU’s foreign policies, and (4) ‘the availability of and capacity to utilize policy instruments’, such as diplomacy, economic tools, military means etc. (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:30).

1.2.2 EU actorness in conflict mediation

As already discussed, actorness is a fundamental condition for exerting external influence. So when it comes to the EU’s mission of promoting peace beyond its borders, we have to explore the nexus between the EU’s actorness and its performance as conflict mediator.

Conflict resolution, conflict prevention and conflict management refer to different approaches that external mediators can adopt to influence a conflict situation (Bercovitch et al., 2009; Wallensteen, 2007). As these terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the academic literature, certain conceptual clarifications have to be made. The notion of ‘conflict resolution’ as promoted in this thesis draws on Bercovitch et al.’s (2009) study, so that it describes the overall approach to solving underlying incompatibilities between two or more parties with the objective of ending their conflict. This conceptualisation is also endorsed by the EU itself and, consequently, underpins the very broad understanding of mediation as laid down in the 2009 Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities. Conflict prevention denotes the long-term strategies employed to address structural causes of conflict, such as socio-economic adversities and lack of governance, with the purpose of avoiding an active conflict (Ackerman, 2003; Aggestam, 2003). Similarly, conflict management aims to stop a conflict from degenerating into a violent confrontation, often addressing the issue of armed engagement between the conflict parties (Bercovitch et al., 2009; Zartman, 2000).

The 2013 Comprehensive Approach to External Conflicts and Crises, the EU’s guiding framework for these matters, deems conflict resolution, prevention and management to be all at the core of the EU’s approach to building peace and stability. So it has to be stressed that the notion of ‘peace’ promoted by the EU stands for conflict resolution and long-term reconciliation, in contrast to simply conflict management and settlement. Moreover, as Tocci (2008:875) observes, EU actors envisage the promotion of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and regional co-operation - all components of structural

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positive peace (Galtung, 1996)- to be complementary and ultimately fundamental for conflict resolution. Thereby, this thesis considers the EU’s actorness in conflict resolution and peacebuilding as implying a wide range of approaches, from mediation in an existing conflict to contractual relations with state parties meant to increase their stability and the overall wellbeing of their people.

1.3 Research question

Based on the theoretical framework outlined above, this thesis aims to answer the question: How does the European Union conceptualise its role as a global actor in conflict resolution and to what extent has this conceptualisation been reflected in its mediation of the 2011(-ongoing) Syrian war?

1.4 Scientific and societal relevance of the research

In the past decades, academics and policy makers have become increasingly aware of the important contribution that mediation and dialogue can have in preventing violent conflicts and consolidating peace (Bercovitch, 1996; Ramsbotham et al., 2011; Sherriff et al., 2013). According to Bono (2004) and Moravcsik (2003), the EU in particular has emerged as an important international actor in this field by placing conflict resolution and peacebuilding at the core of its foreign policy mission.

However, Visoka and Doyle (2016:864) contend that the academic literature on EU mediation has tended to reproduce debates on UN peacebuilding, thus overlooking how the EU’s internal institutional processes, as well as its norms, practices and capacities have been invoked when dealing with external situations. This argument is reaffirmed by Haastrup et al. (2014), who identify a significant academic divide between studies on mediation, which are largely grounded in Conflict Analysis Studies, and studies on the EU’s foreign and security policy, which are predominantly situated in Security Studies. The former investigate the conditions that allow the EU to be fully accepted as third-party mediator and to be successful in bringing long-term peace (Bergmann and Niemann, 2013:3), while the latter focus on the EU’s attempt to promote peace by means of remaking security structures, building state institutions, promoting civil society and the rule of law (Blockmans et al., 2010). Visoka and Doyle (2016:864) remark that the EU’s own perception of the factors shaping its peace mission and efforts has been under-researched so far.

This thesis aims to address this knowledge gap by examining the dynamics at the core of the EU’s self-conceptualisation as a global actor in conflict resolution. It seeks to assess the influence that normative and strategic considerations play in the EU’s decision to mediate and its subsequent performance as mediator, by looking at how the EU’s self-conceptualisation as global actor has been reflected so far in its involvement in the Syrian peace negotiations.

The choice of the Syrian peace negotiations as case study for the EU’s actorness is theoretically relevant for two reasons. First, there is little systematic academic inquiry into the EU’s role in the Syrian conflict and most of the studies conducted so far address this topic in the context of the EU’s wider response to the Arab Spring (see for eg. Bicchi, 2014; Börzel et al., 2015; Dandashly, 2015; Noutcheva, 2015). That means that the specific dynamics of the Syrian conflict, as well as the EU Member States’

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political interests in supporting a particular conflict settlement are generally overlooked. Second, there are studies which suggest that regional organisations, such as the EU, are very unlikely to achieve effective and sustainable peace settlements when mediating civil wars, especially those in their neighbourhood (Bercovitch and Schneider, 2000; Gartner, 2011). They argue that ideological factors, such as the mediator’s self-defined identity and the way this is perceived by parties to the conflict, are significant determinants of the likelihood of a conflict becoming amenable to third-party intervention and of certain parties being chosen as mediators. This thesis examines some of these arguments by exploring possible tensions between the EU’s experience in bilateral negotiation with the al-Assad regime following the outbreak of the conflict, and the EU’s mediation strategy. It also sets to determine whether or not the EU has pursed conflicting goals in its response to the conflict.

In terms of societal relevance, this thesis sheds light on what EU and non-EU citizens alike can realistically expect from the EU when it comes to dealing with conflicts, particular violent ones. The belief that the EU has not done enough to solve the Syrian conflict and, implicitly, to prevent the rise of ISIL/Da’esh or to address increasing refugee flows to Europe has fuelled the current wave of euroscepticism (Börzel, 2016; Financial Times, 2016). Yet, while the EU might appear invisible in the conflict taking place in its own doorstep, one has to keep in mind that the Syrian landscape is very complex. As Oosterveld (2018) stresses, the EU has attempted to mediate in a proxy war, which encompasses a multitude of local parties whose reliability make for doubtful allies, while the risk of intensifying conflict between key regional actors continues to loom largely. This is why examining the EU’s actorness in the Syrian conflict is so important. The EU has in theory a wide range of tools for advancing mediation in a very comprehensive way. But if there are certain factors that appear to facilitate or hamper its performance in Syria in particular and peacebuilding in general, then these have to be brought up for public debate. Understanding why there is a mismatch between the EU’s self-assumed role in conflict resolution and its actual peace efforts is the first step for promoting a more self-reflective EU policy, but also for encouraging EU citizens to work toward fixing the issues, rather than just discarding the benefits of the European project.

The study proceeds as follows: Chapter 2 entails a literature review of the EU’s role as global actor, focusing on how different notions of identity and power can explain the EU’s peace endeavours and also on what are the challenges to actorness; Chapter 3 outlines the methodology, detailing the theoretical and analytical advantages of the research design, as well as the limitations of the study; Chapter 4 conducts the analysis of the EU’s role in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, of the EU’s mediation engagement in the Syrian conflict and finally of the extent to which the EU has promoted peace in Syria as an actor; while Chapter 5 draws the conclusions and provides avenues for future research and some policy recommendations.

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CHAPTER 2: Literature Review – The EU as a global peacemaker

The plethora of conceptualisations of EU power is indicative of the extent to which the EU is deemed to be a novel or sui generis actor in international politics. So, while there is a broad acknowledgement of the unprecedented nature of the EU, there is intense disagreement over why this is the case. Along three sections, this chapter reviews the academic literature on constructions of the EU’s collective identity and the ways in which these promote or constrain its external performance as peacemaker.

The first section discusses competing notions of EU power and the particular identities and roles that they envision for the EU in international affairs. As Bretherton and Vogler (2006:37) stress, ‘the relationship between identities, interests and behaviour is neither simple, nor linear’. While the EU’s perceived identity does not directly determine its interests, it does inform understandings of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in the context of ideas, expectations and events which constitute the policy environment. The second section examines the inconsistencies in the EU’s international presence and how these impact on its declared commitment to fostering peace and security in its neighbourhood and beyond. On the same note, the final section discusses the EU’s experience in building peace on its continent and the extent to which the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) -the EU’s framework for engaging with its neighbours- has enabled the EU to replicate previous successes in order to assert itself as a normative or strategic actor in the region.

2.1 The construction of the EU’s collective identity

The processes of European identity formation are intricate and contested. However, the EU’s ability to differentiate itself from others is largely acknowledged. While there is no general agreement on what makes the EU’s unique, most scholars converge on the observation that the EU’s construction of a superior ‘Self’ relies only to a limited extent on processes of negative ‘othering’ (Hülsse, 2006; Bretherton and Vogler, 2006; Waever, 2004). Instead, they stress that the EU espouses an inclusive identity, based predominately on its singular values and/or institutional characteristics (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006; Duchêne, 1973; Manners, 2002; Zielonka, 1998). This means that ‘the European identity’ is theoretically attainable by all those who demonstrate ‘commitment to shared values’ (EU 2004:12). Before analysing the underpinnings of the EU’s distinctive identity, we have to briefly outline the mechanisms through which this is achieved.

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Drawing on constructivist theory (see Wendt, 1994), identities can be theorised as encapsulating the shared understandings about the fundamental character of an entity. These understandings are consolidated by means of the socialisation between different actors, which often leads to their ‘internalisation’- or ‘the adoption of social beliefs and practices into the actor’s own repertoire of cognitions and behaviours’ (Schimmelfenning, 2000:112). In the EU’s case, such internalisation is favoured by strong acquaintance with EU institutions and practices, particularly in the context of small group interaction (Checkel, 2001). Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that EU representatives themselves engage in practices of ‘purposeful construction’ aimed at launching or strengthening certain understandings of the EU’s identity (Webber et al., 2004:23). Values deemed to be constitutive of the EU’s essential nature are constantly reiterated in treaties, which declare that ‘[i]n its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values’ (EU, 2012), as well as in communications of high-profile EU officials, who speak about ‘Europe’s place in the world’ (Solana, 2002).

Questions arise when the EU consistently acts in ways which disregard its values. In this context, the EU’s external action seems to be motivated primarily by self-interest and not so much by the pursuit of ‘universal values’. Although this specific issue is going to be examined in depth later on, suffice it to stress for now that values and interests are not mutually exclusive (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:40). However, a behaviour thought to be cynical and completely at odds with self-declared values results in a loss of credibility, so that over time, little incentive is left for deviant behaviour (Schimmelfenning, 2000:119). Therefore, whether through internalisation or as a persistent frame of reference, identity plays an influential role in the EU’s external action and, consequently, in demarcating the realm of possibilities for acting as a global peacemaker (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:40).

2.1.1 The EU as a distinctive polity

Ever since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the nature and role of the emerging Union have been controversial topics among IR scholars. Most of the first attempts to theorise the identity of the European Community, and later the EU, have focused solely on the role of governments in the integration process and the type of power exercised when legitimising practices and norms in the international arena (Hoch Jovanovic and Brasch Kristensen, 2015; Niemann and Bretherton, 2013; Risse-Kappen, 1996).

Two main competing explanations of the European integration are provided by neofunctionalist and intergovernmentalist scholars. Neofunctionalists, such as Haas (1958) and Lindberg (1963), conceptualise integration as a gradual and self-perpetuating process. Central to their theory is the notion of functional and political ‘spill-overs’, whereby cooperation in one policy area leads almost unequivocally to cooperation in other areas. By contrast, intergovernmentalists such as Milward (1992) and Moravcsik (1993; 1998) highlight the gate-keeping role of national governments in the integration process. They claim that integration occurs when Member States’ interests converge and interstate

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bargaining is easier. Milward (1992) even speaks of an ‘European rescue of the nation state’, thereby implying that the EU is merely a tool for promoting national interests.

Risse-Kappen (1996:56) notes that both neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism suffer from important explanatory limitations that leave aside questions of preference and identity formation. He stresses that both theories assume that integration is fuelled by instrumental self-interest, whereby utility functions are expressed largely in economic terms. Intergovernmentalism assumes that states’ preferences remain unaltered throughout the processes of interaction and bargaining. As such, it has little to say about the ways in which the EU institutions and the integration process itself might influence Member States’ interests and preferences. Neofunctionalism, on the other hand, does consider normative integration in the form of ‘political spill-overs’, but falls short of elucidating the transition from utility-maximizing self-interest to integration driven by common understandings of shared interests. Therefore, neither of these two theories can fully account for the EU’s increasing presence on the world stage, particularly for its mediation efforts. They fail to grasp the reasons for which Member States might be willing to articulate a common voice when dealing with a conflict, instead of simply pursuing individual interests.

2.1.2 Civilian, military and normative power Europe

Several scholars (see Bretherton and Vogler, 2006; Diez, 2005; Manners and Whitman, 2003; Waever, 2004; Zielonka, 1998) attempt to understand the rise of the EU as an international actor by exploring practices of European identity construction. Duchêne’s (1972) notion of ‘civilian power Europe’ provides the starting point for analysing the EU’s unique nature and power. Duchêne (1972:20) identifies the (then) European Community’s inner characteristics as being ‘civilian ends and means and a built-in sense of collective action, which in turn express, however imperfectly, social values of equality, justice and tolerance’. The European Community is consequently ‘an exemplar of a new stage in political civilisation’ in which Member States, having relinquished the use of military means for promoting policy objectives among themselves, can legitimately encourage others to follow suit (Duchêne, 1973 cited in Nicolaïdis and Howse, 2002:770).

Duchêne’s thesis has prompted intense criticism, mainly due to its contention that civilian power could replace traditional military power as the basis for exercising influence in world affairs (Bull, 1982; Hyde-Price, 2006; Stavridis, 2001). Bull (1983), for instance, dismisses the suggestion that the European Community has ever represented an actor in international politics and labels the notion of a civilian power a ‘contradiction in terms’. Bull (1983) claims that the détente period in the early 1970s has given rise to the erroneous belief that military capabilities are no longer important. Nonetheless, he notes, ‘from the perspective of the “return to power politics” of the 1980s’, it becomes clear that the European Community’s civilian power was conditional upon the military power of its Member States (Bull,

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1982:150). Bull’s (1982) solution to these alleged limitations is to call for an ‘Europeanist strategic policy’, which would entail the acquisition of both conventional and nuclear deterrent forces.

The question of the European Community developing a military dimension remained a political taboo until 1991, when the Treaty on European Union (TEU) was signed. As Whitman (1998:135-136) remarks, ‘the TEU has signalled the intent of the Member States of the Union to move beyond a civilian power Europe and to develop a defence dimension to the international identity of the Union’. However, it was only in 1998, when the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was agreed, that the first significant step toward military power Europe was taken. This incipient militarisation of the EU has been critiqued by Zielonka (1998:229), who contends that it undermines the EU’s ‘distinct profile – so important in terms of identity and legitimacy’. Others have emphasized that the loss of a strictly civilian status is not a lamentable event, as long as military force is employed for holistic aims and sanctioned by International Law (Royal Institute for International Relations, 2003:12). But as Bretherton and Vogler (2006:42) stress, a civilian power with military capability truly exemplifies ‘a contradiction in terms’, so that the conceptualisation of the EU as a value-based community begs an alternative formulation.

Manners’s (2002) notion of ‘normative power’ embodies one of the most influential characterisations of the EU’s collective identity. It seeks to eschew the civilian/military dichotomy and to encapsulate instead the ‘ideational impact of the EU’s international identity/role’ (Manners, 2002:238). Manners (2002:239) stresses that notions of civilian and military power suffer from an ‘unhealthy concentration on how much like a state the EU looks’. Hence, he advances a concept of collective identity that both incorporates and complements the EU’s civilian power and its ‘fledgling military power’ through a focus on the EU’s ‘ability to shape conceptions of “normal” in international relations’ (Manners 2002:239).

Manners (2002:241-242) maintains that the EU’s ‘normative difference’ stems from three sources: its historical origins as an unequivocal rejection of war and divisive nationalisms; its unique nature as ‘hybrid polity’; and its constitutional configuration which has fostered the development of certain values and norms, such as peace, liberty, democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, that are firmly embedded in the Union’s treaties and political practices. It is with regards to the projection of these values and the promotion of corresponding governance structures that the EU is said to have ‘a normatively different basis for its relations with the world’ (Manners, 2002:252).

2.1.3 The power of the ‘normative power Europe’ discourse

Manners’s (2002) theory, in particular, has made a considerable impact on the study of EU foreign policy (Bicchi, 2006; Bretherton and Vogler, 2006; Diez, 2005), but the fact that it echoes so much the EU’s own description of its international identity and role ‘could be enough to set the alarm bells ringing’ (Sjursen, 2006:235). As Manners (2002:252) himself acknowledges, his arguments have: an ontological dimension –deriving from the conceptualisation of the EU as a different type of international actor-; a

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positivist dimension –given the contention that the EU purposefully acts to change norms in the international system; and a normative dimension – emerging from the view that the EU should promote its principles outside its borders. All these bring into question the implications of the discursive construction of the EU as an inherent force for good by both scholars and EU officials.

Diez (2005:626) emphasizes that ‘normative power’ is not an objective categorisation, but a ‘practice of discursive representation’. This shifts the focus of the discussion from understanding ‘normative power’ as an empirical phenomenon to grasping its intrinsic power as narrative. One approach in this direction is provided by Nicolaïdis and Howse (2002), who illustrate the significant role that the narrative of the EU as civilian power plays in advancing the EU’s global influence. They observe that the EU’s attempt to export its institutional model involves ‘an imaginative reconstruction by some of its elites’, which ‘repackages and magnifies real, ongoing, progressive reforms’ (Nicolaïdis and Howse, 2002:789). Diez (2005:626) adds that this projection of a ‘utopia’ is a key part of the EU’s endeavour to construct a better ‘Self’ and, paradoxically, also the reason behind the EU’s incapacity to model itself on this utopia. Otherwise said, the narrative of ‘normative power Europe’ shapes the EU’s identity, as well as that of the EU’s ‘Others’, in ways that allow EU actors to overlook their own flaws. Such arguments draw on the poststructuralist understanding of identity as discursive, political, social and relational (Hansen, 2006). The idea that identity is ‘discursive’ and ‘political’ implies that identity exists insofar as it is continuously rearticulated and remains uncontested by competing narratives (Anderson, 1983). The conceptualisation of identity as ‘social’ points to the fact that it is founded on ‘a set of collectively articulated codes’ or, in other words, ‘constituted within and through a collective terrain’ (Hansen, 2006:6). As Diez (2005) notes, it is poststructuralism’s ‘relational’ conception of identity that sheds most light on the effects of the articulation of normative power Europe. To speak about a ‘relational’ identity is to highlight that any given identity requires an ‘Other’ to build itself against. Therefore, the process of European identity formation relies on practices of active ‘othering’ that constantly reify certain identities, practices and values as undesirable and non-European. The EU’s foreign policy, from this perspective, is not merely a representation of the Union as ‘a pre-given object’ on the international stage, but a testimony of the Union’s construction ‘in the very moment of representation’ (Diez, 2005:627).

Notions of identity have a paramount role in legitimising foreign policy and informing Self/Other relations. Hence, Hülsse (2006) suggests to look beyond what the EU does and to focus instead on how the EU or Europe is imagined in discourse. For instance, enlargement is often pictured in terms of a ‘family reunion’ or ‘homecoming’ that brings together ‘European brothers’ (Hülsse, 2006:406-408). These metaphors serve to depoliticise the enlargement process and, thus, to render the adherence to EU values and norms a normal, organic, almost imperative decision. Similarly, Diez (2006) remarks that the Copenhagen criteria –establishing the political, economic and administrative standards for EU membership- are presented as having a universal validity. The ‘European experience’ is revealed as the

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standard for the entire world, so that the decision to join the Union epitomises the admission of ‘having seen the light’ (Diez, 2006:629).

All in all, the discourse on ‘normative power Europe’ fosters a representation of the EU as a virtuous and benevolent force in world affairs. While the EU’s self-proclaimed norms in themselves are to be welcomed, the lack of self-reflection allows their continued violation within the EU, thus placing the EU’s distinctive global profile in danger of being undermined by traditional military power (Diez, 2005; Mayer, 2008). This is why the following section seeks to insert more reflexivity in the ways we conceptualise the European identity and power.

2.1.4 Rethinking the EU’s normative foreign policy

As several scholars (Kagan, 2003; Manners, 2002; Smith, 2003) emphasize, the positive influence of the EU’s civilian-based external power is undoubtedly something that should not be dismissed. However, in order to rescue normative power from becoming ‘a self-righteous, messianistic project’ striving to transform others in Europe’s image (Diez, 2005:636), we need to constantly deconstruct projections of ‘European values and norms’ by exposing inner contradictions and discrepancies between narratives and practices. Sjursen (2006:241), for instance, highlights that existing characterisations of the EU as a ‘normative’, ‘civilian’ or ‘civilising’ power are ‘normatively biased’ and lack analytical precision. She proposes for the EU foreign policy to be assessed based on the type of legal principles that it promotes. Thus, a genuine ‘normative’ power would strive to consolidate cosmopolitan law and not only international law, in order to overcome power politics and to protect the rights of individuals, not only those of sovereign states. From this perspective, the EU’s foreign policy presents a significant tension between its focus on multilateralism, which is based on the principle of external sovereignty, and its support for human rights, which do not imply any legally binding obligations (Sjursen, 2006).

This spotlights the difficulty of delineating clearly between norms and interests. It is, therefore, important to acknowledge that external action is fundamentally strategic and that the idea of a normative agenda without any interests at stake is absurd (Diez, 2005; Noutcheva, 2009; Pohl, 2013). Even when the aim seems to be world peace, foreign policy is still ultimately targeted at enabling the EU to ‘reproduce itself’ (Bretherton and Vogler, 1999:249). From this perspective, the EU tries to address threats to its strategic interests ‘through the external projection of internal solutions (Lavenex, 2004:695). Bicchi’s (2006:287) study of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership reinforces the argument that much of the EU foreign policy is ‘unreflexively Eurocentric’, seeking to promote its own model given that ‘institutions tend to export institutional isomorphism as a default option’. As such, Bicchi (2006:287) makes a conceptual distinction between ‘normative power Europe’ -denoting instances in which foreign policy is ‘intentionally inclusive’ and thus aimed at empowering actors affected by it- and ‘civilising power Europe’ –referring to cases in which foreign policy is lacking reflexivity or inclusiveness, or both.

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Writing in the realist tradition, Hyde-Price (2006:217) contests all normative pretensions surrounding the EU’s external action, maintaining instead that the EU is just a collective tool ‘for shaping its external milieu by a combination of hard and soft power’. From this viewpoint, the EU foreign policy, and in particular the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), is a response to two systemic pressures: ‘global unipolarity and regional multipolarity’. The former refers to the EU members’ ambition to constrain the USA, whose ‘unreliable and capricious’ foreign policy make it indifferent to armed conflicts, such as the one in the Balkans, where it does not have any direct stakes, while the latter denotes Europe’s balanced configuration of power, which renders security and defence cooperation feasible (Hyde-Price, 2006:228-229). Pohl (2013:313), nonetheless, observes that structural realism misunderstands the causal relation between unipolarity and CSDP, since it is the former –epitomised by the USA’s security guarantees- that facilitated the latter by eliminating major concerns with territorial defence. Besides, empirical evidence does not suggest that CSDP operations are shifting the balance of power or that EU states would have any reasons to balance against the USA. Thus, building on Moravcsik’s (1993;1998) liberal theory, Pohl (2013) asserts that the EU foreign policy is formulated by national governments with a view to its expected domestic political consequences and that domestic expectations are determined by both normative values and beliefs about national interests. For instance, the EU member governments’ decision to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s is best explained as a measure to appease the public’s outrage at the perceived failure to defend the values allegedly underpinning post-war Europe, rather than by security considerations or refugee pressures (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:196; Pohl, 2013:318).

These competing yet not mutually exclusive explanations of the underpinnings and contradictions of the EU’s foreign policy bring into the discussion the challenges that the EU faces in acting as a coherent and credible international actor. It is toward this topic that we now turn.

2.2 The challenges to EU actorness

The EU’s ‘capability-expectations’ gap was first addressed by Hill (1993). He claims that the EU might ‘conceivably reach the position of being able to act purposefully and as one’ (Hill, 1993:318). Such an argument casts doubt over the possibility of the EU ever becoming a genuine world power, especially one with leverage in matters of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Most recent academic works, however, do not dispute the EU’s global actorness per se, but focus instead on how issues of institutional design (Howorth, 2010; Kagan, 2002; Niemann and Bretherton, 2013; Noutcheva, 2015; Smith, 2013) and democratic deficit (Barbé, 2004; Wagner, 2006), as well as idiosyncrasies of its conflict management approach (Haukkala, 2008; Stewart, 2008) limit its potential to foster sustainable peace.

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Kagan (2002; 2003) argues the EU’s behaviour on the world stage is informed not so much by a desire to promote core values, but by its great ‘weakness’, which he pinpoints in its inability to command military power comparable to that of the USA. As a result, ‘Europe’s military weakness has produced a perfectly understandable aversion to the exercise of military power’ (Kagan, 2002:10). For Kagan (2002:13) this means that the EU’s approach to conflicts seeks to maximise its influence through ‘such soft-power tools as economics and trade’.

Despite its references to a unique type of strength that accomplished the ‘post-historical paradise’ of ‘perpetual peace’ (Kagan, 2003), Kagan’s work has prompted numerous conceptualisations of the EU as an ‘ineffective non-state’ (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:45). Howorth (2010:456-465), for example, contends that the EU acquired the tools for ‘achieving greatness’ following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, but that as long as the EU does not develop a strategic vision with an appropriate military component, it will face problems exercising influence in a tumultuous multi-polar world. Others, such as Smith (2013) and Niemann and Bretherton (2013), see the deficit in defence capabilities as secondary, maintaining instead that the EU’s biggest challenge in becoming a world power lays in the diversity of political considerations and preferences of its Member States, which makes it difficult to have a coherent EU foreign policy. Since the lack of internal cohesiveness is widely cited as hampering the potential for EU actorness, it is worth mentioning some of the institutional dynamics that account for different degrees of (in)effectiveness in international mediation efforts. Noutcheva (2015) provides a useful starting point for this analysis by highlighting that divergences among Member States make an impact precisely in those policy areas where EU institutions have limited freedom to act on behalf of member governments. This issue is clearly illustrated by the ENP. As the main framework for fostering positive peace (Haukkala, 2008), the ENP has numerous objectives –democracy, economic development and security being the core ones- whose promotion relies on different institutional arrangements. This means that the Brussels bureaucracy often does not have the means or the competence to deliver on the ambitious goals set for the EU, as it is mainly empowered to act in the economic sphere and constrained to varying degrees when it comes to conflict management or democracy support (Noutcheva, 2015:29).

Bretherton and Vogler (2006:174-176) stress that interinstitutional tensions such as the ones riddling the ENP are manifestations of the wider problems of consistency and cross-pillar coherence underpinning the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Although the pillar structure was abolished in 2009, the points made by Bretherton and Vogler (2006) are still largely relevant today. The CFSP –the decision-making framework for crisis prevention/management, peacekeeping/making, humanitarian and military assistance etc.- has an intergovernmental nature and decisions must be adopted unanimously. Consequently, consistency is a major issue. The biggest rift appears between the Atlanticist Member States, such as the UK or Portugal and those which under France’s and Germany’s leadership seek an independent EU position. Equally important are the disagreements over the use of civilian versus military policy instruments, with the neutral governments convinced that the former

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should not be disregarded in favour of the latter. Problems of coherence stem from the interactions between the European Commission (EC) and the Council in CFSP matters. Despite its forty years’ experience in conducting external economic relations, the Commission is relatively marginalised in the context of the CFSP, since it has only limited rights of policy proposal even though it is the principal source of funding (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006:174-176).

Looking at the reorganisation of the EU’s external action in 2009, van Elsuwege (2010:988) asserts that from a political point of view, the Lisbon Treaty stands out as ‘worthwhile and logical attempt’ to increase the coherence of EU foreign policy-making. However, in legal terms, innovations such as the introduction of a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) to coordinate the CFSP and the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) to assist the HR do not solve the intricate relationship between CFSP and non-CFSP actions and even augment the potential for inter-institutional clashes. Such clashes impact negatively on the relations with third-countries, especially in situations where the EU needs to speak with one voice in order to mediate effectively. But that becomes difficult given the continued fragmentation of external representation tasks: the President of the European Council and the HR represent the Union in CFSP matters at their respective political levels, while the President of the European Commission ensures representation in all other policy domains (van Elsuwege, 2010:992). Given the EU’s comprehensive approach to mediation – ranging from crisis management to development aid-, the lines of responsibility for dealing with a conflict are blurry, so that the EU’s performance risks being erratic and without a strategic direction.

Niemann and Bretherton (2013:267) take a different approach to the debate and highlight that a ‘minimal level of coherence must be present to enable the EU to act’. Hence, actorness comes before effectiveness. More importantly, they stress the lack of a linear causal relationship between increased coherence and effectiveness in terms of goal achievement. For that they draw on Missiroli (2001:182), who demonstrates that attempts to increase coherence can result in the lowest common denominator being chosen. This is visible, for instance, in the EU’s preference for often ineffective policies such as positive incentives even when negative incentives carry a better chance of influencing conflict parties.

Barbé (2004) casts doubt over the desirability of a more efficient EU external action since that threatens to undermine its accountability dimension. Her point rests on the observation that the involvement of the European Parliament (EP) – the only directly elected EU body- in CFSP has been traditionally limited on the argument that it hampers the efficiency and coherence of the decision-making process. Nonetheless, while that may be technically true in certain cases, the deficit of formal democratic accountability, legitimacy and transparency in foreign policy matters amounts to paradox, thus, illustrating that the EU does not always practice what it preaches (Barbé, 2004:60). Wagner (2006:201) emphasizes that this discrepancy between rhetoric and practice is relevant for two reasons. On one hand, democratic control of foreign and security policy is what defines a civilian power, which the EU clearly claims to be. On the other, democracy has been widely deemed by academics and EU officials alike to

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be the foundation of peace, since it is believed that public control of political institutions prevent leaders from engaging in reckless military actions. From this perspective, problems of accountability emerge as the biggest challenge to the EU asserting itself as a normative power in conflict resolution (Wagner, 2006).

Such claims about the implications of the democratic deficit are downplayed by scholars who examine concrete initiatives in the field of CFSP/CSDP. Olsen (2008) looks at the EU’s policy for conflict prevention in Africa and confirms the arguments about the lack of causation between coherence and external policy effectiveness advanced by Missiroli (2001), as well as by Niemann and Bretherton (2011). Thus, Olsen (2008) notes that there has been outstanding horizontal and institutional coherence between CFSP/CSDP actions and development assistance, with the latter clearly reinforcing the goals of the former. However, the significant shortcomings in fostering peace cannot be ignored. Olsen (2008:159) argues that the reason for all these is the ‘sectorisation of EU policy making’ that allows ‘participants within each policy sub-field to develop sector-specific interests and identities’, which then prompts them to downscale their concerns exclusively to their own fields or policy sector. Zooming in on the EU’s slow and restrained response to the Libyan crisis in 2011, Koenig (2014:251) adds that the EU ‘still acts in line with its traditional role concept as civilian power’. As such, Koenig (2014) highlights that despite internal and external calls for it to adopt a comprehensive approach to the crisis, the EU could not surpass internal disagreements on the use of force or compensate for the lack of corresponding material capabilities. It is this ‘capability-expectations’ gap, which widens whenever the EU perpetuates a certain narrative -comprehensiveness to crises in this case-, yet fails to translate it into practice, that raises most doubts about the subjectivity and credibility of the EU as an actor on the world stage (Koenig, 2014:251).

Finally, some scholars explain the limitations of the EU’s actorness in peacebuilding based on the types of conflict resolution mechanisms that it traditionally employs. Visoka and Doyle (2016:863) argue that the EU’s peace support operations reflect ‘internal dynamics of neo-functional integration and consolidation’, so they are often an ‘externalisation of its own self-perception of European peace formation to other contexts’. Based on a case study of the EU’s role in normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, Visoka and Doyle (2016:873-874) illustrate that the EU’s approach to peacemaking relies primarily on deconstructing complex political issues into ‘acceptable and everyday decisions’. That does not mean avoiding sensitive issues, but rather ‘deconstructing language and practice’ as to identify a common ground and then initiating a sequence whereby agreement in a certain domain necessitates finding consensus in another domain. For example, in the agreement on customs stamps, Serbia opposed any stamp that alluded to a republic or statehood of Kosovo, but instead agreed to endorse one stating ‘Kosovo Customs’. This way, Serbia acknowledged the authority and legality of Kosovo Customs, but avoided conceding to its statehood attributes (Visoka and Doyle, 2016:872). Therefore, the Kosovo-Serbia case study suggests that the EU is most effective at technical dialogues,

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rather than at high-level political negotiations, because low-profile negotiations do not attract so much public expectation and pressure, which facilitates the practical breakdown of sensitive issues (Visoka and Doyle, 2016:874).

Having reviewed the main factors which influence the EU’s ability to act as a peacebuilding force on the world stage, the next section focuses exclusively on the ENP. This will help formulate a better account of the origins of the EU’s external actorness in the first place and shed more light on the incentive mechanisms that have allowed the EU to consolidate peace so far and that now appear as immutable obstacles in its endeavour to stabilise its neighbourhood.

2.3 EU actorness in relation to neighbours

2.3.1 The case of the ENP

The idea of a policy framework for the European neighbourhood emerged as the negotiations for the 2004 Eastern enlargement round were drawing to an end. The Copenhagen European Council in December 2002 first acknowledged the political ambition ‘to take forward relations with neighbouring countries based on shared political and economic values, […] to avoid new dividing lines in Europe and to promote stability and prosperity within and beyond the new borders of the Union’ (European Council, 2002:6). Thus, in 2004 the EU launched the ENP to provide an overarching framework for the EU’s foreign policy relations with countries in Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus, the Middle East and Northern Africa. The ENP was rendered operational through comprehensive Action Plans for each country and complemented with Association Agreements and additional policy instruments such as the ‘Union for the Mediterranean’ and the ‘Eastern Partnership’ , as well as being equipped with significant financial resources through the ‘European Neighbourhood Policy Instrument’ (Keukeleire and Delreux, 2015).

The launch of the ENP did not dissolve, but rather reinforced notions of the EU as a ‘gated community’ (Zaiotti, 2007:143), with the policy itself being described ‘as a tool for policing the backyard’ (Gänzle, 2009:1717) and thus for ‘demarcat[ing] the EU’s finalité’ (Browning and Christou, 2010:112). Clearly, the main goal of the ENP is to support democratic political reform and economic liberalisation in third countries, while avoiding the immediate prospect of future membership (Gänzle, 2009; Haukkala, 2008). It is anyways very difficult to conceive of further expansion given the ‘enlargement fatigue’ widely expressed by many EU member governments and the fact that the EU’s borders have reached areas of geopolitical interest (Gebhard, 2007; Stewart, 2008). This, therefore, poses questions about the Union’s ability to project normative power and to further consolidate democratic peace in its neighbourhood (Browning and Christou, 2010).

As Vachudova (2005) stresses, enlargement has been a highly effective tool for promoting positive peace. From the perspective of the EU’s external action, enlargement serves two important functions. First, it provides the Union with the chance of ‘locking its neighbours into stable and democratic

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transition’, as the case of Greece, Portugal and Spain suggests (Haukkala, 2008:1603). Second, and most importantly, the enlargement process allows the EU to project its norms and values in a both legitimate and efficient way (Haukkala, 2008; Martínezgarnelo y Calvo, 2014).

Haukkala (2008) adds that from the point of view of third countries, a credible membership prospect has three advantages. First, it legitimises compliance with the EU’s demands for normative change. Second, it gives policy-makers in candidate countries the political cover for advancing at times painful domestic reforms in the name of enjoying further on the benefits of European integration. Finally, the pre-accession process entails considerable financial and technical support, which is crucial for transforming governmental structures. This support is minimal or non-existent compared to other EU assistance schemes, such as the ENP (Haukkala, 2008:1605).

According to Vachudova (2005:63), this highly institutionalised and structured integration process serves to delineate between the passive and active leverage that the EU has over potential members: passive based on the overall appeal of EU membership and active based on the calculated conditionality employed by the Union throughout the accession period. In Haukkala’s (2008) view, it is this active component that embodies the EU’s true leverage. The ENP demands immediate reforms, but in exchange of vague incentives, such as visa/travel facilitation or facilitation of ‘trade and access to the EU market’ (EU, 2004), which essentially amounts to putting ‘the veritable cart before its neighbours’ horses with no tangible carrot in sight’ (Haukkala, 2008:1617). Consequently, by relinquishing enlargement as a tool of normative power, the EU has undermined its own capacity to effectively stabilise its neighbourhood. Stewart (2008) emphasizes that the lack of any enlargement prospect has a particularly negative impact on the EU’s ability to address protracted conflicts in its neighbourhood, such as the ones in the Southern Caucasus. Although conflict resolution is an ENP priority, it has a lesser presence in the country-specific Action Plans due to the lack of incentive mechanisms to back it up. Thus, Kelley (2006) observes that notions of conditionality and clear benchmarks for peacebuilding were gradually replaced in Action Plans with terms such as ‘joint ownership’ and ‘partnership’. From the perspective of many ENP countries, such as Azerbaijan or Armenia, the lack of incentives for implementing EU reforms has meant that things should continue as usual. As such, since the early 2000s, many ENP countries have seen their democratic systems deteriorating, human rights issues stagnating or even worsening, while prospects of sustainable peace got even slimmer (Kelley, 2006:42).

2.3.2 The EU’s response to the Arab Spring

Several scholars argue that after the Balkan wars in the 1990s, the Arab uprisings in 2011 have posed the biggest challenge to the EU’s international actorness (Börzel and van Hüllen, 2014; Bicchi, 2014; Dandashly, 2015). The revolts that started in Tunisia, spilling among other countries including Syria, caught EU policy-makers by surprise. The main response to the momentous calls for democracy came in the form of a revision of the ENP, which nonetheless failed to restore peace and political stability. Almost seven years after the onset of the ‘Arabellions’, the EU appears to have failed to assert

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its actorness in the region (Börzel et al., 2015; Noutcheva, 2015). States such as Egypt and Bahrain have descended in even more repressive regimes than prior to 2011, Libya has experienced state collapse, while Syria became trapped in an intractable armed conflict (Börzel et al., 2015).

As the Arab revolts in general and the Syrian crisis in particular unfolded, it became clear that the EU had difficulties deciding how to address the conflicts (Dandashly, 2016). Scholars highlight that the EU did not make the most of its extensive foreign policy toolbox due to internal divisions (Bicchi, 2014; Seeberg, 2013), thus indirectly limiting itself to mainly humanitarian actions (Pierini, 2016). Nonetheless, Börzel and van Hüllen (2014) suggest that this failure to shape international negotiations in the wake of the Arab Spring has not been caused by a lack of actorness, but rather by the promotion of conflicting goals. Despite the ENP’s revision, the EU’s strategy for its Southern neighbourhood has remained security and stability driven (Dandashly, 2015; Teti et al., 2013), which has come in severe contradiction to its declared goal of supporting democratisation and human rights (Börzel and van Hüllen, 2014).

For Syria, this meant that the EU initially refused to impose sanctions on the al-Assad regime (Börzel and van Hüllen, 2014:1045) and was reluctant to support the opposition in the early stages of the conflict, allowing it to become fragmented as other regional players got involved endorsing different factions (Dandashly, 2016:398). The ad-hoc fashion in which the EU responded to subsequent events did not help either to prevent state failure and massive human rights violations (Börzel et al., 2015). As such, the academic consensus so far is that the EU has not stood out as an international actor in the way it dealt with the Syrian conflict, falling short from its peace mission and casting into doubt the feasibility of its comprehensive approach to conflicts.

Chapter 4 continues the discussion of the EU’s mediation in Syria and examines the arguments outlined above in more depth.

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CHAPTER 3: Methodology

3.1 Type of research

This qualitative research is a single case study, which examines in detail a specific facet of the EU’s foreign policy, more exactly its engagement as third party conflict mediator. The aim is to gain in-depth knowledge about how the EU’s self-conceptualisation as global peace promoter has been reflected in its foreign policy response to the Syrian conflict. This will help inform future academic research on the EU’s main currency in international affairs – its normative or soft power-, as it would provide insights into the underpinnings of the widely criticised ‘capability-expectations gap’. By matching the EU’s rhetoric with its actual practice, this study seeks to uncover whether the peacemaking role that the EU has assumed in the global realm can actually be advanced through the EU’s current foreign policy strategies and tools.

3.2 Type of case study

Drawing on Yin’s (2003:40) framework, this study is a qualitative exploratory research with a holistic single case study design (Fig.1). To give scientific weight to my study, the analysis of the EU’s self-conceptualisation of actorness will be grounded in a historical perspective to understand how the EU’s discourses and policies have changed over time. The discourse analysis of EU documents (policy papers, press statements etc.) regarding its participation in the Syrian peace process will provide insight into how long-term trends and institutional changes are reflected in localised cases.

3.3 Unit of analysis and unit of observation

The unit of analysis, the subject of this thesis, is the EU’s actorness in conflict resolution, which refers to the EU’s self-conceptualised role in this regard at a narrative level.

The unit of observation is the EU’s foreign policy response to the Syrian crisis (2011-ongoing), defined as the overall mediation efforts that the EU undertook in order to bring about peace.

3.4 Research method: Discourse Analysis

3.4.1 The choice of method

This study employs discourse analysis (DA) as method for illustrating and assessing the relationship between textual and political processes. The use of DA is characteristic of the

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epistemological paradigm of social constructivism, which deems foreign policy to be an intrinsically discursive practice (Hansen, 2006; Larsen, 2004). Consequently, we have to pay attention to the dynamics of language in order to understand how the EU conceptualises its role on the global political stage, particularly with regards to conflict resolution and peace promotion, and then how this conceptualisation informs foreign policy.

The concept of EU international actorness is nonetheless something that can only be approached from a discourse perspective. Larsen (2004:67) remarks that if there is no joint representation of the EU as a distinct foreign policy actor at the level of key EU institutions, then we cannot speak of the EU as a global (normative) power. In this case, the classical realist interpretation of the EU would be validated, as foreign policy would merely serve the function of aggregating domestic interests and views. However, if the DA confirms that the EU is indeed constructed as an international actor, then the next step is to examine what kind of actor is being constructed and notably what values are being articulated as underlying actorness. Furthermore, DA is also conducive to tracking the process of foreign policy change. By looking at the communication of different institutional actors, such as the EC and the Council, we can gain insight into how interests and values are framed and interact over time to shape joint strategy and policy-making (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004).

3.4.2 Data selection

The documents analysed entail: strategies and joint communications of the EC, Council Conclusions, Resolutions of the EP, official statements of high-level EU representatives (eg. HR, president of the EC), other policy documents and communication of the EEAS.

The corpus of documents for the DA was selected based on: (1) internal genealogy, as specified by the EU documentation itself; and (2) as to reflect diachronic characteristics, so emphasis is put on documents that mark a turning point in the EU’s foreign policy mission and in its approach to the Syrian conflict or to external conflicts in general. The genealogical approach to discourse is especially important because it helps us grasp how concepts and forms of knowledge are normalised over time through discursive practice (Jackson, 2007:398). This is useful for identifying any views and values that might have been gradually sidelined and marginalised in the EU’s strategy and decision-making processes.

Employing a ‘grounded theory’ approach, the data collection was considered complete when adding new documents provided no further insights except for those already acquired though the examination of earlier documents.

3.4.3 Data exploitation: key questions to be addressed

This thesis’s main research question is: How does the European Union conceptualise its role as a global actor in conflict resolution and to what extent has this conceptualisation been reflected in its mediation of the 2011(-ongoing) Syrian war?

Mediating the European Model: A critical analysis of the European Union's foreign policy response to the Syrian conflict (2011-ongoing)