The Communicative Union
A critique of EU foreign policy towards the
Middle-East in terms of communicative action
Master thesis by Roel W. van Oosten, student number 10168117,
for the master's programme Philosophy, supervised by prof. dr. H.O. Dijstelbloem
at the Amsterdam Graduate School of Humanities, July 2017
Abstract
In this thesis, I will explore the EU’s foreign policy towards the Middle-East from the perspective of Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action. The starting point of that exploration will be my hypothesis that there exists an internal friction within that area of policy making. After describing detail the development, some key policy documents and the narratives that run through them I will formulate this friction like this: there is a tension between the European idea that the Southern Mediterranean should be kept at a distance for security reasons while attempts are made to approximate the latter's moral views to those of the EU by way of approximation in other areas. How—if at all—can we then construe the theoretical foundation of EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East in such a way that we escape the conclusion that the Union has either stepped away from its value-laden base or is insincere in its relation with the Southern Mediterranean? Key will be to understand the goals of the Union as resembling what Habermas calls reproduction of the lifeworld, which requires communicative action. In chapter 4, the result will be a set of three criticisms of EU policy towards the MENA states. In general, I will argue that the Union does in fact engage in communicative action but forces the way in which such interaction takes place. This then appears as non-communicative since strong communicative action entails the freedom of the hearer to question validity claims: whether he will or will not must be his choice alone.
I think it is wonderful that I know so much more about their journey than any of them do themselves— Salam Europa! (Kader Abdolah)
k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1. Theoretical framework: Communicative Action 7
1.1 Communicative versus Strategic Action 8
1.2 Systems and the Lifeworld 11
1.3 Conclusion 1 4
2. EU external action towards the Middle-East 16
2 .1 Development and current framework of the CFSP 1 7 2 .2 EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East: key documents 20 2 .3 (In)stability and moral duty: the narratives of EU action 2 3
2.4 Conclusion 28
3. EU External Action: System or Lifeworld? 29
3.1 The reproduction of the European lifeworld 29
3.2 Strategic or Communicative Action? 33
3.3 Conclusion 37
4. Three conceptual problems with EU policy 40
4.1 Refusal to shift to discourse 40
4.2 Forced shift to discourse 43
4.3 Not even trying: shift to strategic action 4 7
4.4 Conclusion 50 5. Conclusion 52 Literature 55
Introduction
The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and more generally the external action of the EU is one of the fields of cooperation that touches most directly on the sovereignty of its Member States. That is why intergovernmentalism rules in this area and why, while working towards a common policy, the traditional state-like means of legitimising such policy are avoided. This thesis will not deal directly with such 1 means either. It will simply begin with the assumption that it is important to base action in especially these state-like areas on something more than the infamous practice of muddling through, but on a more conceptual and perhaps philosophical idea of what it is the EU—or any other actor in these areas—aims for. There are two sides to this. First there are the moral aspects of the EU, its wider aims and ideas about its role in the world. This, the treaties describe most clearly in Article 3(5) TEU:
“In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests and contribute to the protection of its citizens. It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child.”
Secondly, there is the question of what works. This is especially relevant given the many interventions across the world by the Euro-Atlantic coalition, led by the US. These interventions, often military, do not usually seem to have brought stability to the relevant regions. This is particularly true for the Middle-East, where a multitude of complicated and deep-rooted conflicts is ongoing, leading to large amounts of refugees seeking their way to Europe and so-called foreign fighters and terrorism being perceived as a threat to Europe. In order to influence this situation, the EU seeks to be an actor of importance in the Middle-East. As we will see, this has two elements: the protection of the2
1 Tonra, B. (2011) Democratic foundations of EU foreign policy: narratives and the myth of EU
exceptionalism , Journal of European Public Policy, 18:8, pp.1190-1207, p.1190
2 I am conscious of the differences between the Middle-East, the Southern
Mediterranean, the MENA area, the Maghreb, the Mashreq and the Arab world. For stylistic purposes I choose to use these interchangeably, assuming the reader to have some sense of the (not at all clear) geographical scope of the region I am talking about, which is primarily defined by the countries the EU seeks to have a relationship with.
European area of peace and security on the one hand and the proliferation of the values of the Union on the other. This results in general and more specific foreign policy documents on the EU’s relation with the Middle-East. These documents make clear that a notorious trait of EU-law in general is reproduced in its foreign policy: an enormous amount of policy documents in which it is sometimes difficult to discover a clear line.
I think it would therefore be profitable to look at EU foreign policy on a more conceptual level. When the acquis on the Union’s relations with the Middle-East is condensed into a number of lines of thought, i.e. arguments or general aims, we have something that we can more easily analyse. So, I will draw on earlier research into the narratives that can be identified in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity (PfDSP). In addition, some critical discourse analysis will play a role in my argument. While the research into these narratives produces indispensable input for this thesis, the conceptual weight of this thesis lies elsewhere. Therefore, I will not go into theoretical detail about the foundations of such research on narratives and discourses. In effect, the identified narrative strands will be the object of my study rather than the result.
If the theoretical angle of this thesis is not that of narratives and discourse studies, we need another framework in order to come to a deeper analysis of EU foreign relations law and policy. Such a framework should first be applicable to the situation in which the EU and the states in the Middle-East find themselves on a structural level. Second, it should be able to describe in theoretical terms the different aims and narrative strands identified in chapter 2. Third, the theory should help us to identify and more precisely describe the tension within EU relations with the Middle-East. This might allow us to reformulate the friction in this policy area in conceptual terms which will in turn open the possibility of formulating a theoretical solution.
The theoretical framework that I will use to analyse the tension is that of communicative action, which was developed by Jürgen Habermas in his 1981 work The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA), a translation from the original Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns . The part of his
theory relevant for this thesis will be explained in chapter 1. While the Theory of Communicative Action was developed much further by Habermas and others into a critical project, I will not go that far and I will not primarily use this critical project as my point of reference. Rather, I will limit myself to the theory of the difference between communicative and strategic action in order to use it to describe the (inter)action between Europe and the Middle-East. Also, beyond that, I will use Habermas’ system-lifeworld distinction to discover whether it could be at all productive to describe EU action as communicative or strategic, following Habermas’ account. The result of this approach is that I might, in the course of my argument, slightly deviate from the original understanding of communicative action.
There are two main reasons for these choices. First, and most important, is the aim of this thesis: it is an attempt to use Habermas’ work to explore the subject of EU-MENA relations in the context of the EU’s foreign policy. So, it is vitally important that I build on those parts of his vast oeuvre that I think provide a basis for a philosophical exploration of this very complicated area. But secondly, of course, the choice of theoretical background should also be defensible on a theoretical rather than a teleological level. In this respect, I merely claim that I take a well-defined portion of TCA and do not cherry pick from that. Though this is not a convincing argument for selecting what I select, that is not a problem since, given my idea of a suitable limitation, I only have to show that it is at least not theoretically unsound.
Before I explore EU policy using the theory of communicative action, I will first introduce both TCA and EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East separately. I will start with the former because it is necessary to sketch the theoretical framework before the empirical object to study is added. This allows us to select the relevant elements from EU foreign policy documents. So, for readability, the first chapter will deal with the Theory of Communicative Action. In this chapter, I will introduce communicative action as a mode of reaching agreement regarding (the goals of) cooperation in which shared interests and argumentation take the upper hand, as opposed to instrumental action which is mainly aimed at reaching your own goals independent of those of others. The lifeworld is the social situation in which communicative action can take place against a background of shared knowledge and values, which is opposed
to a system, in which goal selection is taken over by a non-communicative medium, leading to a prevalence of strategic action. These concepts will be explained in much more detail in chapter 1, as said, along with a more critical reflection to this theoretical framework. In chapter 2, I will look at the development of the EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East and Northern Africa (MENA), starting at the origins of the Union itself and ending with the reactions to the Arab Spring. In the first section, this will mainly entail an historic approach to identify the key developments that led to the EU foreign policy framework as it is today. There, the analysis will concern the development of the legal framework for the European Union’s foreign relations in general. After all, obtaining some sense of the general legal framework is important for understanding developments in specific fields. In the section that follows, I will describe the EU policy towards the Middle-East. I will focus on the origin and purpose of the ENP and PfDSP, and some other documents. Some of the main elements of these policies will be highlighted and I will try to offer a comprehensive overview of the area. Then, in section 2.3, I will make an effort to condense the myriad of developments and policy expressions into something that might be analysed on a more theoretical level. In that effort, I thankfully use other authors’ discourse analyses of EU foreign policy and research that have led to the identification of some dominant narrative strands.
So, chapter 2 will bring forth two related objects which we can subsequently study from the perspective of the Theory of Communicative Action. One is a selection of policy expressions (2.2), the other a set of narratives running through these documents (2.3). The conclusion of this chapter will be that there is a tension or inconsistency between the different lines that can be discovered in EU policy towards the Middle-East. More specifically, the way in which some of the specific instruments are designed does not do justice to the value-laden general purposes and aims of the policy. My aim in this thesis is to analyse this tension in terms of communicative and strategic action and their requirements. Therefore, the research question of this thesis can be formulated as follows: To what extent could the Theory of Communicative Action (1) help to identify the hypothetical tension in EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East and (2) what then are the
specific issues and possible solutions?
The connection between TCA and international relations and policy making is not new. Head for example applies the theory of communicative action to the field of international relations and specifically to the conflict in Kosovo, and concludes that its full potential for the field has not been released yet. Others connect the idea of 3 communicative action to constructivism in international relations and strategic action to realism and conclude that Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action is not very productive within this field of study, because realism still prevails over constructivism, which would make 4 instrumental action the better tool. However, in transcending the framework of the nation-state and looking a the EU as a whole, we enter into a sphere in which traditional relations of power become less important. Instead, communication gains primacy as the Union becomes a less credible force in the world, as we will see in chapter 3. So, I think the assumption that communication-type action could exist in the sphere of international relations is a viable point of departure for this thesis even if it is not conventional in current thinking on the subject.
In addition, I think my approach might be useful in understanding the way in which the EU positions itself as a partner for the MENA countries because the theory allows for commensurable criticism (and suggestions for change in actions and attitudes) of Europe on the level of both state and lower scale actors. (I.e. persons, but also organisations, families, church communities, etc.) How this will turn out in practice will naturally become clear in later chapters. The final step would then be to give some directions to practical improvements of EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East. This is not to say that I will attempt to rewrite all relevant documents. Rather, I will give some key points policymakers and diplomats should take into account during interactions with their MENA counterparts, which will take the form of three related points of criticism in the terms that TCA provides.
In essence, I think the EU, in its relations with the MENA countries, sometimes becomes a speaker intent on over-justifying. In theory this would mean that the EU does not engage with the Middle-East as equal
3 Head, M. (2012) Communicative action in International Relations , in Justifying violence:
Communicative ethics and the use of force in Kosovo , Manchester University Press, Manchester
4 Lin, H-H. (2012) Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action and Constructivism in
partners but that it assumes the states and peoples of that region to bring with them an entirely different lifeworld. These different lifeworlds would then require extensive discourse in order to come to an agreement about the normative claims on which to base consensual selection of worthy goals for cooperation. As I will argue, a shift to strategic action undermines the EU’s own logic of the organic relation between civil and political as well as economic rights on the one hand, and stability and ensuing security for the Union on the other. For if the export of such rights and values, which will be conceptualised as the reproduction of the European lifeworld, is key to the EU policy towards the Middle-East, then communicative action is key to achieving the goal of stability.
1. Theoretical framework: Communicative Action
Jürgen Habermas, who was born in 1929 in Düsseldorf, became convinced that German philosophy had failed its greatest test because it's tradition left thinkers unable to understand or criticise National Socialism. This idea was reinforced when Heidegger remained silent in response to Habermas’ challenge to explain the allusion of the former to National Socialism’s “inner truth and greatness”. He therefore looked at the Anglo-American tradition, especially its pragmatic and democratic elements. Habermas first gained prominence with his habilitation ( Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit , 1962), which clearly foreshadowed his later interest in communicative action. In this work, he described the development of the bourgeois public sphere from its origins in the salons to contemporary mass media. While the latter is dominated by capital, the former at least tried to live up to the ideal of free and open communication, in which the others are respected as equal partners. Furthermore, Habermas identifies his speech disability (as a result of a cleft palate, for which he was treated twice during his childhood) as one of the reasons he became interested in communication and language. 5 In this first chapter, I will describe Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action. In my explanation, I will not necessarily follow the line of the original work, though it will be my main source. In some cases, I use later work if the explanation therein resounded with me better or in case he adds or clarifies what was not (explicitly) present in the original work. The first section will deal with communicative action and the difference with strategic action. In section 2, I will discuss the difference between lifeworld and system. Since this is the basis of Habermas’ critical project, I will not leave that project out entirely. I will however not deal with it extensively, since it is meant more as an illustration of the context of the concepts I will use in this thesis. Nevertheless, I think it is important to shed some light on what the original author does with the concepts and oppositions I use to criticise EU foreign policy. Furthermore, it is especially these parts of the work that have been the subject of criticism, on which I will also touch.
5 Biographical details from Habermas, J. (2005) Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion ,
1.1 Communicative versus Strategic Action
In this section, the concept of communicative action will be discussed. Habermas uses this term to denote instances of social interaction in which actors try to reach common understanding on the basis of reason and argument in order to achieve consensus about the goals of coordination within that group. This model is opposed to teleological action, which has two strands that both describe self-interested action:6 pursuit of one’s own goals in non-social situations is called instrumental action, while strategic action refers to social situations, such as when someone tries to influence the behaviour or decisions of other actors. The discussion in this section and the next is intentionally kept clear of connections to the European Neighbourhood Policy and other CFSP documents in order to establish a sound theoretical background before any more concrete legal or policy discussion is entered into.
Habermas begins The Theory of Communicative Action by offering his own conception of rationality, which for him entails not particular knowledge but rather the use of it:
“An assertion can be called rational only if the speaker satisfies the condition necessary to achieve the illocutionary goal of reaching an understanding about something in the world with at least one other participant in communication. A goal-directed action can be rational only if the actor satisfies the condition necessary for realizing his intention to intervene successfully in the world.” 7
This idea of rationality is pragmatic in the sense that it develops a view of practical knowledge from the perspective of the speaker: the performative attitude. This performative attitude in turn entails viewing language as a medium for coordinating action. When speakers adopt an orientation towards reaching an understanding in order to establish coordination, they engage in communicative action. In social situations this can be opposed to strategic action, as said.
In strategic action, language is used “with an orientation towards consequences. ” In other words, participants in such action coordinate with8 one another by influencing each other’s actions, or are at least by
6 Habermas, J. (1986) The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume one , Polity Press,
Cambridge, p.85
7 Idem, p.11
8 Habermas, J. (1998a) On the Pragmatics of Communication , MIT Press, Cambridge,
attempting to do so. The notion of perlocutionary acts is key to analysing this strategic action. Perlocutionary acts are speech acts as viewed from the perspective of their consequences, as opposed to their locution (what was said, i.e. which words were uttered) and illocution (what was meant). In the words of Austin, who is the originator of these levels of describing speech acts: "Saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them." In strategic 9 action, actors are thus primarily concerned with the perlocutionary effect of their speech and try to achieve their own goals. The interests and preferences of an actor B are therefore only contingently linked to those of actor A and only to the extent that A needs to know what threats or promises might move B to take the desired action. (And vice versa.) As said, strategic action is the only of the two strands of teleological action that applies to social situations, as instrumental action is aimed at manipulating the natural world. Where, in Kantian terms, strategic action denotes the use of other people as a means to one’s end, instrumental action is the use of the physical surroundings as a means to an end. 10 This means that, while it does not apply to social interactions as such, it can be used to describe the self-interested behaviour of states in the field of international relations. This is especially true for the realist strand of 11 that field, developed from the work of Hobbes. That said, the constructivist school of IR has built on Habermas’ TCA and incorporated the ideas about communicative action discussed below. 12 So, it is clear that the application of the idea of communicative rationality and action to inter-state relations could very well be a feasible approach.
9 Austin, J.L. (1962), How to Do Things with Words , Oxford University Press, Oxford, p.
101
10 A. Elgar (2006) Habermas: Key Concepts , Routledge, London, p.73
11 For some examples of such use, see Kahler, M. (1998) Rationality in International
Relations , International Organization 52, 4, pp. 919–941; Slantchev, B.L. (2005) Introduction to International Relations; Lecture 3: The Rational Actor Model , Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego; and Caporaso, J.M. (1992) International relations theory and multilateralism: the search for foundations, International Organization 46, 3, pp.599–632, p.603f.
12 See, for examples, K.M. Fierge and K.E. Jørgensen, (2001) Constructing International
Relations: The Next Generation , Routledge, New York, NY, p.63ff; Carlsnaes, W., Risse, T. and Simmons, B.A. (2013) Handbook of International Relations, Sage, London, p.123ff; and Diez, T. and Stienz, J. (2005) A useful dialogue? Habermas and International Relations , Review of International Studies, 31, pp.127–140
Communicative action is aimed at reaching individual or collective goals on the basis of a shared understanding of their worthiness. To illustrate 13 clearly the opposition with strategic action, it could be noted that communicative action centres around the illocutionary speech act. After all, when a shared understanding is to be reached, the meaning of what is being said (or written) should be at the centre of attention. While strategic action has succeeded when one’s individual goal has been accomplished, communicative action is only successful when actors come to a motivated agreement about which goals are worth cooperating for. Motivated is the key word here, since getting someone to do something by way of threat or promise and thus without meaningful motivation is what Habermas describes as strategic action. So, instead of threat, force and strategy; consensus, cooperation and reasoned argument lay at the heart of communicative action. In later work, 14 Habermas distinguishes between communicative action in a weak and in a strong sense. In the former case, the actors only try to reach understanding about “facts and actor-relative reasons for one-sided expressions of will.” 15 In the case of strong communicative action however, actors try to reach an understanding about the normative reasons for selecting a certain common goal. This presupposes shared values that bind their wills: strong communicative action is about common recognition of rightness claims.
For communicative action to work, a mechanism must exist that makes rationally motivated agreement possible. In that context, Habermas uses an argument analogous to that of the truth-conditional account of meaning. However, he does not link meaning with representational semantics but rather takes a pragmatic approach. This approach analyses the conditions for success on the illocutionary level of speech acts. At the heart of his pragmatic theory of meaning we find the idea that “we understand a speech act when we know the kinds of reasons that a speaker could provide in order to convince a hearer that he is entitled in the given circumstances to claim validity for his utterance—in short, when we know what makes it acceptable. ” Thereby, meaning is connected 16 with the practice of giving reasons, since speech acts necessarily involve
13 Habermas, J. (1986), pp.85–101; 284–337 14 Habermas, J. (1998a)
15 Idem, p.326 16 Idem, p.232
claims that could invite criticism and which the actor should be prepared to justify. An immediately successful speech act requires what Habermas calls an affirmative position of the hearer, which means that he or she assumes that the claims involved in the speech act could be supported when asked. When the hearer does ask for reasons for or justification 17 of some of the claims involved, actors switch from ordinary speech to the discursive process of argumentation in which implicit claims are tested.
The types of claims inherent in speech acts that could become the subject of such discourse do not just encompass claims about objective facts. Instead, Habermas identifies a number of validity claims that can also be about such things as moral rightness, authenticity and aesthetic value. However, Habermas does not claim that this kind of claim is18 mind-independent in the sense that truth claims are. Instead, these validity claims can be publicly considered to be unjustifiable and also publicly defended by reasonable arguments. Validity in these types of claims is then analogous to correctness in empirical truth claims. In 19 general terms, most speech acts involve three types of (tacit) validity claims: truth, rightness and sincerity. The first is naturally the traditional type of objective truth claim, while the second is about the moral appropriateness of the utterance. The third is about the sincerity, i.e. the non-deceptiveness of the speaker.
1.2 Systems and the Lifeworld
Habermas describes a system as a situation or instance of coordination which requires less of communicative action. His textbook examples are markets and bureaucracies. In these systems, the demands of communicative action are lowered because coordination is reached, at least in part, through something other than language. Money and institutional power are the so-called non-linguistic mediums in respectively markets and bureaucracies and relieve actors of some of the high demands of strong communicative action. As opposed to systems, Habermas defines the lifeworld as the set of domains in which consensus
17 Habermas, J. (1986), pp.95–97 18 Idem, pp.8–23
19 See for a more elaborate discussion on this analogy Heath, J. (1998) What is a validity
predominates. This should however not be understood as necessarily involving constant linguistic and explicit coordination and consensus building. Rather, the lifeworld refers to the contexts of social action that offer a basis for mutual understating, such as cultural systems of meaning and social norms learnt in such contexts as schools, churches or families.
Nevertheless, cooperation in the lifeworld on the basis of consensus
20
and shared norms sometimes requires linguistic interaction to take place, while coordination in systems is non-linguistic and (therefore) non-intentional. (Notice the parallel with communicative action, which does not require constant explicit problematizing of validity claims either.) It is within the lifeworld that communicative action takes place, and it is limited by this context of cultural background. In other words, social norms that are perceived as being valid decrease the likelihood of validity claims being problematized.
This is the point where we touch upon Habermas’ critical project, which centres around the rationalization of the lifeworld. He claims that this phenomenon occurs as, in pursuit of the Enlightenment, communicative rationality is liberated (or has escaped) from the limits of social and cultural norms. This means that much of the resource of implicit agreement that formed the basis of much of the cooperation that can result from communicative action disappears. In its place, other mechanisms of coordination have to emerge. These must be non-intentional, since it is precisely communicative action that provided intentional mechanisms for cooperation. So, we turn again to systems, in which non-intentional coordination is achieved by non-linguistic mediums such as money or (institutional) power. In Western society, modernization has become pathological according to Habermas because the replacement of communicative forms of coordination (and solidarity) by non-linguistic mediums of money and power limit the reproduction of the lifeworld. Reproduction of the lifeworld should be seen as the practice of intersubjective (and especially intergenerational) exchange of worldviews and norms through which societies are continued over time. The colonization of the lifeworld by non-intentional forms of cooperation can also take the form of Juridification, by which Habermas means that law comes to play a role in an increasing number of aspects
of social life and so transforms citizens in clients of bureaucracy.
This critical project has been the subject of debate and critique ever since it was brought forth. This critique, to the extent that it is relevant to discuss here, centres around the problem of otherness that is inherent in Habermas’ TCA. For example, Benhabib argues that Habermas’ account is too rigid in its distinctions between issues of justice and of the good life, public and private interests, and private values and public norms. These predetermined distinctions cannot exist if public discourse is dependent on strong communicative action, which would require all norms, including those which shape such boundaries, to be under scrutiny. This feminist critique draws attention to the fact that the21 binary oppositions that Habermas develops with his account of the public sphere “exclude the thematization of issues most important for women.” In addition, Fraser claims that Habermas’ model of the public22 sphere is subject to feminist critique insofar as it is monolithic. That is to say, it is rationalistic and casts aside more rhetorical and emotional kinds of public speech. Again, this disregards many perspectives as foreign to 23 the public debate before its boundaries are settled through communicative action. 24
McCarthy also argues that Habermas’ theory is too inflexible for (modern) pluralistic societies. His immanent critique boils down to the claim that the intersubjective understanding of the value of certain goals is unattainable because there is no universal standard of value. In other 25 words, the rational discourse that communicative action requires cannot be expected. Instead, the rational discourse that lies at the heart of cooperation as a result of communicative action must not disregard the cultural context and history of a community. These arguments and critiques all show that othering is in some ways inherent in TCA and Habermas’ subsequent work. So, in building on this work to develop a critical assessment of the relations between the EU and the Middle-East,
21 Benhabib, S. (1992) Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in
Contemporary Ethics , Polity Press, Cambridge, p.110
22 Ibid, p.13
23 Fraser, N. (1992) Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually
Existing Democracy , in Calhoun, C. (ed.) Habermas and the Public Sphere , MIT Press, Massachusetts, pp.109–42
24 Benhabib does not agree with Fraser that this critique affects the principle of the
public sphere itself, see Calhoun (1992), p.118f.
25 McCarthy, T. (1992) Practical Discourse: On the Relation of Morality to Politics , in Calhoun,
we must be sensitive to this feminist criticism to the work itself. This means, above all, that in order to escape from similar feminist critiques myself, my analysis must at the same time be based on and critical to Habermas’ theory of communicative action and account for the critiques discussed above. This will become especially obvious in chapter 4, where some similarities between my arguments and those of—among others— orientalism will be identified.
One question regarding the similarity between systems and strategic action might remain: if they are not descriptions of the same phenomena on different levels, then what is the difference between them from the perspective of the actor? The crux seems to be that the non-linguistic medium of a system provides information flows that are behaviour-steering. Concretely, the money in the market removes the need for communicative action and invites in a sense an orientation towards success instead of consensus. From the standpoint of an actor in other words, the difference between strategic action in the lifeworld and a system means a “switch to media-steered interactions [which] results in an objective inversion of setting goals and choosing means.” Thus, 26 strategic action in the lifeworld involves the purposive rationality that comes with trying to achieve a certain goal, while strategic action in the context of a system is led by reasons that are intrinsic to the non-intentional medium.
1.3 Conclusion
In conclusion, Habermas identifies two kinds of social action aimed at coordination: strategic and communicative action. Because only the latter is aimed at consensus on the basis of rational argument, it requires a mechanism that makes rationally motivated agreement possible. Habermas’ approach to identifying this mechanism is pragmatic and results in the idea that communicative action requires the hearer to know what reasons would make an utterance acceptable. This leads him to identify three types of validity claims, all of which come under discussion in strong communicative action. This requires a lot from actors, since all speakers should always be prepared to defend their claims when
challenged. In systems however, these demands are lowered because a non-linguistic medium takes over some of the coordinating tasks. In opposition to systems exists the lifeworld, which is an ambiguous term. The lifeworld is on the one hand the social situation outside a system, in which day to day interactions take place. On the other hand, it is the resource for consensus because it consists of all social and cultural background information that enables the tacit agreement on validity claims that makes communicative action feasible. In chapter 3, we will see how this theory can help us understand EU foreign policy, which will be described in the chapter below.
2. EU external action towards the Middle-East
Having decided beforehand that EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East would be our object of study we needed a theoretical point of view to analyse it. This theory, the Theory of Communicative Action, has been explained in chapter 1. Now, we can turn to EU foreign policy. This policy consists of such a large number of documents that a description and summary must select a perspective. This perspective is naturally provided by the theory in the first chapter. However, this will not explicitly be mentioned in this chapter since that would confuse matter too much at this stage: chapter 3 is reserved for the combination of theory and policy and this one is dedicated to the latter only. Notwithstanding the particular focus of the description below, I have tried to do justice to both the historical development and broad perspective of EU policy towards the Middle-East, including older and more recent and general and more specific policy documents.
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first will deal with the historical background and institutional framework of EU external action. While it must be kept far too short to do justice to the complex law of the EU, it will hopefully provide some sense of the complexities and the nature of cooperation in this area—for the expert in EU-law, it will be an indication of my focus in this thesis. The second section will give some examples of the actual external action that has resulted from these rules and frameworks. Finally, we will look at the narratives and discourses that have accompanied external action. This will not entail an explicit theoretical analysis thereof, though I will draw from such research. Rather, the identification and description of these narratives will serve to bring together the enormous amount of EU policy expressions into a number of comprehensible lines of thinking. This will allow us to critically assess the manner in which the EU reacts to its Southern neighbourhood.
2.1 Development and current framework of the CFSP
The start of the Korean War in 1950 convinced European leaders that Communism posed a growing threat. A growing number of politicians 27 argued in favour of European integration in the areas of foreign policy and defence—Churchill for example launched the idea of a European army under a European Minister of Defence. When China entered the 28 conflict by granting military support to North Korea, concrete proposals were made for a European Defence Community (EDC) which included German rearmament. This plan, named after René Pleven, would 29 provide for a German army which answered to the EDC itself in order to decrease the perceived risks of German remilitarization. After the death of Stalin and the end of the Korean War in 1953 however, the French felt that German rearmament was no longer necessary and the French parliament did not ratify the EDC-treaty as a result. 30 Nevertheless, two years later, the Treaty of Paris entered into force, which made West Germany part of the Western European Union and the NATO. 31
After some rejected proposals for political cooperation by De Gaulle, his departure in 1969 led to new initiatives. While it was clear that cooperation had been “much easier when difficult issues such as … questions about the best stance for Western Europe to adopt towards the crises in the Middle-East could be dealt with elsewhere”, these led 32 to the Davignon Report (also known as the Luxembourg Report) of 1970, in which it was proposed that the members of the European Economic Community should speak with one voice in international matters. This report resulted first in the European Political Cooperation33 (EPC) and later the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in 1992. In the decades that followed, many attempts were made to
27 Larres, K. (1996) Integrating Europe or Ending the Cold War? Churchill’s post-war foreign
policy , Journal of European Integration History, 2:1, p.30
28 Van Vooren, B. and Wessel, R.A. (2014) EU External Relations Law , Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, p.357
29 Gavin, V. (2010) Were the interests really parallel? The United States, Western Europe and the
early years of the European integration project , Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 8:1, p.36
30 Guillen, P. (1996) The Role of the Soviet-Union as a Factor in the French Debates on the
European Defence Community , Journal of European Integration History, 2:1, p.72
31 Van Vooren, B. and Wessel, R.A. (2014), p.358
32 Ludlow, P. (2010) European integration and the Cold War , in Leffler, M.P. History of the
Cold War, Volume 2: Crises and Détente , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p.193
strengthen the EPC and to link it more closely to the Community. The 34 EPC was a mixed success: while it played an important role in the conflicts in the Middle-East in the 1970’s, it proved too weak as a basis for adequate reactions to the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Yugoslav Wars. As was written at the time:
“After a decade in which economic issues dominated international politics, the more traditional substance of diplomacy, namely political-security issues, have returned to the forefront. These are, of course, the very issues that political cooperation was set up to deal with, and their proliferation in recent years has naturally placed a new set of demands and pressures on the machinery discussed in this volume [i.e. the EPC].” 35
The idea of a CFSP, as first developed by Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand found its way into the Treaty on European Union (TEU),36 albeit as a separate—second—pillar. It also provided for the position of a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in 37 essence a European foreign minister. Since the treaty of Lisbon, the pillar structure has been abandoned, but the CFSP remains clearly separate from other fields of cooperation.
The CFSP is the only area of EU-law of which a part of the substance is given in the TEU (Title V), whereas all other policy domains are found in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). 38 Because of the politically sensitive nature of foreign policy, integration does not reach the level of some other areas of cooperation, and Title V TEU provides lex specialis for CFSP. 39 This concerns mainly the institutional balance and the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has a very limited role. The separateness of the CFSP is most clear in Article 40 TEU, which states that “The implementation … shall not affect the application of the procedures and
34 Van Vooren, B. and Wessel, R.A. (2014), p.362
35 Allen, D. et al. (1982) European Political Cooperation: Towards a Foreign Policy for Western
Europe , Butterworth Scientific, London, p.170
36 Corbett, R. (1993) The Treaty of Maastricht: from Conception to Ratification: A Comprehensive
Reference Guide , Longman Group UK, Harlow, Essex, p.[Available at Juridische Bibliotheek (184: OB 40 )]
37 Art. 18 TEU
38 The same goes for the CSDP, see below. 39 Article 24(1) TEU
the extent of the powers of the institutions” in other areas. This so-called non-affect clause also works in reverse: the exercise of other competences may not affect the CFSP. The CJEU lacks jurisdiction where the CFSP is concerned, save to monitor compliance with this Article 40 TEU, and procedures under article 263 TFEU, i.e. “reviewing the legality of decisions providing for restrictive measures against natural or legal persons adopted by the Council”. 40
While (historical) initiatives for common external action in a more diplomatic sense eventually developed in the CFSP, a specific branch of that, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), has a more militaristic character. As such, it can be seen as the EDC that was voted down by the French in 1954. While Member States continued to prefer cooperation in this area within the framework of the NATO, the third millennium has seen the CSDP grow into a fully-fledged policy area. Nevertheless, it remains “an integral part of the common foreign and security policy.” It encompasses institutions such as the European 41 Union Military Committee (EUMC), the Committee for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management (CIVCOM) and the European Defence Agency (EDA). These institutions hint at the defence-oriented nature of the CSDP, and help to clarify a possible confusion: it is not apparent from the outset where the line between security as in the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy should be drawn. Given the nature of both policy areas, a distinction between military security and other forms thereof seems to be the most logical and confirmed by practice. 42
These other kinds of security include environmental security and economic security, with the result that common policy in those areas has effect on the Member States’ competence foreign and security policy, the core of which they retain. These are often internal policies with external dimensions, such as the Common Commercial Policy (CCP). When for example the German authorities refused a licence to export certain equipment to Libya, the CJEU found that such measures fall within the scope of the CCP even if it has foreign policy and security objectives. 43
40 Article 275 TFEU 41 Article 42(1) TEU
42 Van Vooren, B. and Wessel, R.A. (2014), pp.401–2 43 Case C-70/94 Werner , ECLI:EU:C:1995:328, par.10
The Union has explicit 44 external competence in environmental protection45 and development cooperation. 46
In this section, I have tried to give a brief overview of the historical development and general issues of the CFSP and the wider area of EU external action. A framework for cooperation has clearly been established which encompasses not only military security but also other policies that aim to increase and protect stability within the EU. With the non-affect clause and the limited jurisdiction of the CJEU, the CFSP remains clearly separated from the rest of the Union structure. On these very basic descriptions of essential features of EU external action, the next two sections will build an image of more concrete policies towards the Middle-East. The first of those will describe the relatively long-term process of cooperation with the Mediterranean neighbours of the EU, while the second describes the acute action taken in response to the so-called refugee crises.
2.2 EU foreign policy towards the Middle-East: key documents
While the EU has seen seven enlargements, which made its number of Member States grow from the initial six to 28, there are limits to its 47 growth: Article 49 TEU reads that “any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them” can apply for membership. In 1987 Morocco was refused because it was not European, and while Turkey had not been refused on those grounds in the same year, accession negotiations have been difficult on the basis of other criteria. These criteria were further codified by the European Council in Copenhagen in 1993, to which the newer version of Article 49 now refers as “the conditions of eligibility agreed upon by the European Council”. These Copenhagen Criteria are (1) “that the country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, (2) the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to
44 As opposed to implicit competence, which exists when external competence is
necessary in the execution of an internal competence. (Art. 216 TFEU)
45 Art. 191(4) TFEU 46 Art. 209(2) TFEU
47 The number might shrink to 27 again as a result of the so-called Brexit referendum in
cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the union [and] (3) the candidate’s ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.” Furthermore (4) the Union itself should have the capacity to48 incorporate a new member.
This means that not all countries are eligible for accession. With such countries, cooperation may be achieved through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which finds its basis in Article 8 TEU. This article contains three important elements. First, it says that the Union “shall” develop special relations with neighbours, which means it cannot decide not to. Second, the article seems to refer to multilateral cooperation, since it calls for an “area” of prosperity. 49 Third, the cooperation must be based on the values of the Union. This article 50 should be read as an objective 51 of the union instead of a new competence conferred on it: the legal basis is that of Association Agreements: Article 217 TFEU. The design of the ENP is subject to 52 four considerations: (1) the geographic scope, (2) the aims of the Union, (3) the possible ambiguity on the link with further enlargement and (4) the available and suitable instruments. 53
Limiting ourselves here to the question of purpose, increasing security, stability and prosperity by offering a stake in the internal market was chosen as the final objective. It was further remarked that “failure in 54 any of these will lead to increased risks of negative spillover on the Union.”55 This aim has to be viewed in connection to the 2004 enlargement of the EU, in which ten countries, predominantly from Eastern Europe, joined the Union. Following that enlargement, it was 56 considered important “to avoid drawing new dividing lines in Europe.” 57
48 Presidency Conclusions , Copenhagen European Council, 21-22 June 1993, at 13 (criteria
numbers added)
49 Blockmans, S. and Van Vooren, B. (2012) Revitalizing the European Neighbourhood
Economic Community: The Case for Legally Binding Sectoral Multilateralism , European Foreign Affairs Review, 17:4, pp.577-604
50 See Art. 3(5) TEU
51 Thus in a similar vein as Artt. 3(5) and 21 TEU 52 Van Vooren, B. and Wessel, R.A. (2014), p.537
53 Solana, J. and Patten, C. Joint Letter, Wider Europe of 7 August 2002, on file with
authors
54 Ibidem.
55 Solana, J. and Patten, C. (2002)
56 Specifically Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta,
Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Parallel to the ENP, the European Security Strategy (ESS) was published, which expressed the same goal more openly in terms of security: “The integration of acceding states increases our security but also brings the EU closer to troubled areas. Our task is to promote a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European Union and of the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations.” 58 About the Mediterranean specifically, the document says that the
“area generally continues to undergo serious problems of economic stagnation, social unrest and unresolved conflicts. The European Union’s interests require a continued engagement with Mediterranean partners, through more effective economic, security and cultural cooperation in the Framework of the Barcelona Process. A broader engagement with the Arab World should also be considered.” 59
This Barcelona Process is also known as the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and was the result of a 1995 conference under the Spanish presidency. The Partnership has three main objectives: to establish (1) a common area of peace and stability, (2) an area of shared prosperity through free trade and (3) to promote understanding between cultures and peoples of the Euro-Mediterranean region. 60
The communication from the Commission titled ‘the European Union’s role in Promoting Human Rights and Democratisation in Third Countries’ places the policy relating to human rights and democracy61 62 in the context of a wider strategic approach. Apart from the aim of coherence and consistency in the EU approach, which is also present 63 64
Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours , Brussels, 11 March 2003, COM(2003)104 final, p.4
58 European Security Strategy, A Secure Europe in a Better World , December 2003 59 Ibid. p.8
60 Musu, C. (2010) European Union Policy towards the Arab-Israeli Peace Process , Palgrave
Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, p.56
61 COM(2001)252
62 See for example COM(95)567 final on the external dimension of human rights,
COM(99)256 final on countering racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Candidate Countries and COM(2000)191 final on EU election observation and assistance.
63 Which are more problematic terms than they seem in the context of EU external
action: while the English version refers to consistency, the French, Italian, German and Dutch version refer to coherence ( la cohérence, la coerenza, die Kohärenz and de samenhang , respectively), which is a more positive requirement. See Cremona, M (2011) Coherence in European Union Foreign Relations Law , in Koutrakos, p. (ed.), European Foreign Policy: Legal
in the treaties, the document discusses the integration of human rights 65 and democratisation into dialogue and cooperation and the European 66 Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). 67 The communication emphasises that “to be effective, respect for human rights and democracy should be an integral, or ‘mainstream’, consideration in all EU external policies.” It later adds that “the EU’s 68 insistence on including essential elements clauses [containing human rights etc.] is not intended to signify a negative or punitive approach. They are meant to promote dialogue … as well as the prevention of crises.” The relationship between democracy and socio-economic rights69 is presented as organic. More specifically, participatory democracies and accountable government are claimed to be prerequisites to combat poverty, which is assumed to be the main cause of instability. 70
The first reaction of the EU to a major outbreak of such instability, i.e. the Arab Spring, is the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean (PfDSP). In this document, the 71 Commission claims that “the demand for political participation dignity, freedom and employment opportunities expressed … can only be addressed through faster and more ambitious political and economic reforms. The EU is ready to support all its Southern neighbours who are able and willing to embark on such reforms.” The partnership is based 72 on three elements: (1) democratic transformation and institution-building, (2) stronger partnership with the people and (3) sustainable and inclusive growth and economic development. The document lays down the short- and long-term strategy for assisting the Southern neighbours, but it stresses that the latter will be in order “when each country is ready to indicate what it needs from its EU partners.” 73 Four years later, the High Representative reported on the
and Political Perspectives , Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Northampton.
64 COM(2001)252, pp.6-7 65 Art. 21(3) TEU 66 COM(2001)252, Ch. 3 67 Idem, Ch. 4 68 Idem, p.8 69 Idem, p.9
70 Teti, A. (2012) The EU’s First Response to the ‘Arab Spring’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of
the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity , Mediterranean Politics, 17:3, pp.266–288, p.270
71 COM(2011)200 final 72 Idem, p.2
