Overview

Scholars and policymakers in EU foreign policy lament the EU's inability to assert itself on the world stage. This book explains this weakness by arguing that EU foreign policy is burdened by various internal functions, and systemizes the analysis of internal functionality, pushing the study beyond the concern with effectiveness.

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9780230282292

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Reviews

Anyone thinking that the EU's foreign policy is primarily about changing the world rather than changing itself, think twice. Through the simple idea of functionality, Bickerton's book offers a brilliant and sober new prism through which to appraise the current debate over Europe's mission to contribute to a new world order. Perhaps counter-intuitively, this is an optimistic book: CFSP achieves more than its straightforward foreign policy claims. A must read for anyone interested in world politics.' - Kalypso NicolaIdis, Professor,University of Oxford, UK 'A clear, analytically sophisticated and refreshingly original analysis of the European Union as an international actor. Bickerton argues that the functionality of the Union's external policies should not be judged by the metric of the foreign policy of traditional nation states. Rather, its purpose is as a site for institutional competition within the EU and as a narrative for the next phase of European integration.' - Anand Menon, Professor of West European Politics, University of Birmingham, UK 'The great interest of this work by Chris Bickerton is that he situates the debate around the role of the European Union in a way that takes us away from the well-worn path of academic reflection dominated by purely institutional concerns. By putting the question of meaning at the heart of the EU's foreign policy, he brilliantly contributes to the renewal of the study of the international relations of Europe, a renewal to be welcomed given the doubt that has taken hold of Europeans as regards their capacity to influence world affairs'. - Zaki LaIdi, Research Professor, Sciences Po, Paris, France 'The book presents a sophisticated picture of the constructive functions that foreign policy plays in the advancement of the European integration.' - Journal of Common Market Studies

Anyone thinking that the EU's foreign policy is primarily about changing the world rather than changing itself, think twice. Through the simply idea of functionality, Bickerton's book offers a brilliant and sober new prism through which to appraise the current debate over Europe's mission to contribute to a new world order. Perhaps counter-intuitively, this is an optimistic book: CFSP achieves more than its straightforward foreign policy claims. A must read for anyone interested in world politics.' - Kalypso NicolaIdis, Professor, University of Oxford, UK 'A clear, analytically sophisticated and refreshingly original analysis of the European Union as an international actor. Bickerton argues that the functionality of the Union's external policies should not be judged by the metric of the foreign policy of traditional nation states. Rather, its purpose is as a site for institutional competition within the EU and as a narrative for the next phase of European integration.' - Anand Menon, Professor of West European Politics, University of Birmingham, UK 'The great interest of this work by Chris Bickerton is that he situates the debate around the role of the European Union in a way that takes us away from the well-worn path of academic reflection dominated by purely institutional concerns. By putting the question of meaning at the heart of the EU's foreign policy, he brilliantly contributes to the renewal of the study of the international relations of Europe, a renewal to be welcomed given the doubt that has taken hold of Europeans as regards their capacity to influence world affairs'. - Zaki LaIdi, Research Professor, Sciences Po, Paris, France

Author Information

CHRISTOPHER J. BICKERTON Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He was previously Departmental Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford. He has published widely in the field of European Studies and International Relations, in journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Political Studies and International Politics.

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