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CIAO DATE: 3/99
French Policy Toward Iraq Since the Gulf War: A Realist Dream Case? *
Université du Québec à Montréal
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
In his monumental tome Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger described France as a state which “continues to stand for the policies of raison d’État, and for the precise calculation of interests rather than the pursuit of abstract harmony”. 1 This assessment from someone who must surely recognize a realist when he sees one reflects a widely-held image of French foreign policy, at least outside of France. With this country once again in the limelight with its opposition to US policy toward Iraq since the end of the Gulf War, all the evidence would seem to indicate that this view is still warranted. In this paper it will be contended that such a simple, realist interpretation of French policy, despite appearances, was probably never very accurate, and is certainly not true of French foreign policy in the post-Cold War world.
Realism, at the best of times, only gives a one-sided and simplified model of foreign policy, even if one has recourse to that most tired and unconvincing of arguments, the one which claims that “in the final analysis...”. For many scholars of international relations, this would be nothing more than a charge through open doors, but, as recent refinements to the realist interpretation of foreign policy show, 2 supporters of this approach are not about to disappear, new world order or no new world order. By looking at the behavior of a state which would appear to present impeccable realist credentials, in one of the clearest cases of the exercise of power politics since the end of the Cold War, the limits of the realist interpretation of foreign policy will become most obvious. Other theoretical approaches, notably institutionalism and constructivism, are needed to explain foreign policy, not just as a supplement to the dominant realist paradigm, but as vital ingredients to any credible explanation of a state’s conduct in the international system.
This paper will begin by looking at the evidence which would support the view of France as a prime candidate for any realist interpretation of foreign policy. It will then suggest how institutionalism and constructivism can throw further light on that country’s international behavior. Finally, its policy toward Iraq since the end of the Cold War will be shown to be consistent with this broader general interpretation of French foreign policy, and that the image of a self-serving state simply bent on obstructing the world’s remaining superpower at every opportunity, so often portrayed in the US media, may make good copy, but does little to convey the complexities of the reality.
France: The Consummate Realist State?
Since the end of the war in February 1991 France has experienced four different governments, including two presidents who have both had to cope with governing coalitions made up of their opponents, and yet its Iraq policy has changed little. All opinion polls point toward large popular support for this policy. 3 With such indicators, it would be easy to claim that this country fits all the criteria for consideration as a “unitary actor”. As for being “rational”, few would dispute the fact that France resolutely pursues its national interest, and given the importance it has always jealously attached to its international status and to its influence, this national interest is clearly linked with a concept of power. According to one recent analysis of French foreign policy, which undoubtedly expresses a widely-held view outside of France, this country developed a strong sense of national interest and it “so firmly believed this to be a universal norm that it assumed any state that claimed to be acting for ‘higher’ motivations was being hypocritical”, 4 a situation which has led to a lot of misunderstanding between France and the United States.
From the standpoint of French decision makers, the international system is still basically the anarchical world postulated by realist theory, and their country must ever be on guard to face external threats. Thus, in the words of President Chirac, we are living in a world
which has lost its bearings and which is in an era of change, of instability, of brutal resurgence of conflicts of another age of ethnic rivalries, while at our doors religious extremism is feeding itself on certain economic and social failures. 5
In the face of this essentially hostile world, French foreign and security policy has tended to adopt a strategy of balancing, combined with alliance politics predicated on the importance of defending French autonomy within the international system. Traditional policy toward NATO has been firmly founded on the view that this alliance is vital for French defense, but it must not be completely subordinate to the dictates of the United States. This stance has been maintained, though in a modified form since the end of the Cold War, despite various moves toward a closer relationship with that organization, which have always stopped short of rejoining its integrated military structure. French emphasis on a European defense and security identity, and on the Western European Union (WEU) as the main vehicle for it, is an obvious element of this strategy. Likewise, French policy toward Russia can be interpreted as an attempt to balance, by bringing into the international system the one state which could eventually challenge the dominant US position in Europe, not as a replacement for the United States, nor as a pillar of a modified form of bipolarity, but as a necessary counterweight to perceived unbridled US power.
Like any state of the realist world, France seems continually preoccupied by relative gains. The very notion of rang a core objective of its foreign policy, with its insistence on keeping up that country’s position in the international hierarchy, represents a particularly acute awareness of any factors likely to improve or harm that position. The close relationship with Germany, the cornerstone of European integration, has been frequently overshadowed by the French fear that Western Europe’s economic giant could flex its political muscles and start to compete in areas where France has felt its superiority. French wavering over its full support for German unity in 1989 and their less than enthusiastic welcome for German claims to a permanent seat on the United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC) are just two examples of their ambivalence toward any signs of challenges to French views of their country’s place in Europe. Similar attitudes permeate France’s relationship with the United Kingdom.
The French approach toward international institutions also appears to bear the hallmark of a state obsessed by its status and the need to maintain and expand its power. France has expressed a clear preference for a concert-type of arrangement. Since 1945, it has made a point of fostering those institutions which reflect best its own perceptions of an international hierarchy of which it is obviously a key member, and which it feels can only be effective if the major powers control them. There could be no question in the eyes of its leaders that the UNSC could function without France as a fully-fledged member. De Gaulle often talked of “canceling” Yalta, seen, mistakenly, as a dividing of the world by the “Big Three”, who had unjustly conspired to exclude France from its rightful place in the debate over the postwar settlement. France experienced difficulty in applying such an assertive policy during the Fourth Republic (1946-1958), because of internal divisions and its involvement in two colonial wars, but with the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, it has often insisted on a hierarchical form of institutionalism. For example, much of the French quarrel with the US over NATO can be traced back to the American refusal to give any serious consideration to de Gaulle’s request for a joint Anglo-Franco-American directorate over that body in 1958. 6 One can point to other examples of this strategy throughout recent French history: the creation of the G-5, later to become, despite French reluctance, the G-7, by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, or more recently the Contact group for ex-Yugoslavia, and support for the status quo in the UNSC, despite growing pressures to enlarge it.
Finally, consistent with realist thinking, French foreign policy appears to be sensitive to the impact of exogenous factors. The most important of these is, of course, the end of the Cold War and the concomitant transformation of the international system, from the dominance of bipolarity to a less well-defined structure. All observers of French foreign policy agree that these changes have created great problems of adjustment which France’s decision-makers have found difficult to handle. 7 The two most important consequences of the end of the Cold War in Europe, German unification and the demise of bipolarity, effectively put an end to two fundamental pillars on which every government had built its foreign policy since 1958: West Germany as a relatively weak political power, which offered no serious threat to France’s dominant position within the European Community, and the opportunities provided by the Cold War to practice a relatively autonomous foreign policy between the two superpowers.
Institutionalism, Constructivism and the Theory of Foreign Policy
Despite the provocative view of John Mearsheimer that institutions seem to have little or no effect on state behavior, 8 the importance of institutions as a factor which all states take into account in the post-Cold War has been recognized not only by those who call themselves institutionalists, but also by many realists. 9 Most institutionalists will agree with the two realist principles that states are the main actors of the international system and that they are basically propelled by their own self-interests. 10 Where the two approaches part company is over the question of whether institutions act as constraints on states (the realist view) or as facilitators. In other words, do institutions merely force states to take them into account when deciding on a particular course? Or do they actually cause states to act in ways they would not probably choose to do so if these institutions did not exist?
Whichever view one adopts of the role of institutions, there can be no doubt that they have become a vital part of foreign policy in the post-Cold War world for at least four reasons:
As mentioned earlier, the real dividing line between realism and institutionalism concerns the view of how institutions affect state behavior. If one holds the former view, then institutionalism has little to bring to the debate over foreign policy. There is also a fundamental shift in the emphasis in the institutionalist approach since the end of the Cold War. In keeping with the essentially liberal theoretical perspective on which it rested, institutionalism tended to concentrate on those areas where cooperation, especially between the two sides of the East-West political divide, was most likely to take place, in the realm of economic and commercial relations. Institutionalism in security matters was reserved for states which largely shared the same values, notably within the pluralistic security communities analyzed by Karl Deutsch and his colleagues, and which were in reality restricted to one specific institution, NATO. 11 Today, security institutions, whether of the collective defense or collective security variety must be included in any institutionalist approach. 12
As I will try to show in the case of France, institutions represent more than mere obstacles with which foreign policy makers must contend. They are not merely a point of reference but also an integral part of state strategy, both to shape the international system and to adapt behavior to meet norms accepted and adopted by the members of that institution. This does not mean that political fights and jockeying for position do not go on in institutions, nor that states do not use them to serve their own narrowly defined interests. After all there is no reason that what is considered normal practice within institutions in most domestic political systems should not also take place at the international level. What counts is that maintaining these institutions and the rules and norms they uphold has become part of the formulation of many states’ interests.
When we hear the terms “norms” and “formulating interests” these days, we know that constructivism cannot be far away. This approach reminds us that the realist assumption of national interests as a given shows a surprising lack of realism. Interests evolve, are often redefined and cannot be limited to material interests, as traditional realists seem to believe, or to the narrow conception of military security offered by neorealism. In deliberate opposition to traditional realist views of foreign policy theory, Finnemore puts the constructivist case in the following terms: “states’ redefinition of interests are often not the result of external threats or demands by domestic groups. Rather, they are shaped by internationally shared norms and values that structure and give meaning to international political life.” 13 As Checkel has pointed out, constructivists do not have a monopoly over norms and their importance in international relations. However, both realists and institutionalists tend to see them as part of the superstructure of international relations, with little “causal force” in the case of the former and as instruments of regulation for the latter. Constructivists, on the other hand, view them as “collective understandings that make behavioral claims on actors”. 14
It is not always clear to what extent and how these norms become part of the definition of a state’s national interests, in the sense of a vital entity to be defended or promoted within the international system. Some states may not appear to pay much more than lip service to such norms as human rights and democracy, but the fact that they are sensitive to such issues, even if only to reinterpret them in a way which allows them to claim they are upholding them, indicates that they can no longer ignore them. States which deliberately set out to violate them or to cast them aside can usually expect to find themselves generally isolated, or at least shunned by the major powers, and to feel the weight of pressures such as sanctions. However, constructivists go no further than to claim that the presence of these norms create a certain environment conducive to orienting states’ actions in one direction rather than another. They cannot ensure that states will necessarily behave in a particular way.
Constructivists insist on identity as the other major contributing factor in the shaping of national interests. They do not, of course, reject the role played by material interests in this process, but even the importance of these to a definition of the national interest can be largely a function of popular and elite perceptions and culture. For example, defense of Japan’s rice production from imports represents more than a simple response to the pressure exerted by that country’s farmers. It also corresponds to a certain conception of the Japanese way of life, which is generally shared throughout the population, even if protectionism means the Japanese consumer must pay at least twice for the domestic product. National identity, which is made up of generally shared values, views of what the state represents for its members and for the outside world, the roles that this state does or should assume in the international system, the way the members of this state think that others view them and the status or the place in world politics they feel belongs to their country, will help decision makers to prioritize certain objectives, which, in turn, become national interests. Having said that, it must be emphasized that identity does not determine interests. At the same time, a crisis of national identity can be translated into a crisis of foreign policy, while a state seeks to redefine its place in the international system, perhaps as the result of exogenous forces or of internal upheavals. In all cases, identity will be “socially constructed”, i.e. it is neither immutable nor an intrinsic given, and can therefore evolve and contribute to changes in foreign policy.
Finally, constructivists make a close connection between norms and identity, since, in the view of one group of authors,
norms either define (‘constitute’) identities in the first place (generating expectations about the proper portfolio of identities for a given context) or prescribe (‘regulate’) behaviors for already constituted identities (generating expectations about how those identities will shape behavior in varying circumstances). 15
Thus, by applying the basic concepts and mechanisms of institutionalism and constructivism, it should be possible to build a model of foreign policy which goes beyond the realist view of a state pursuing its national interest, defined in terms of expanding or defending its relative power position in an anarchical world, even if the functioning of this world is to some extent modified by the growing importance of international institutions. With institutionalism we gain some sense of how institutions are affecting the international system, and above all, from the point of view of foreign policy analysis, are modifying the behavior and the strategies of individual states. Constructivism brings with it an interpretation of the ways in which institutions act on state behaviors in general, and help to define national interests in particular. By emphasizing identity as an important factor in the formulation of interests, and therefore of the basic objectives of foreign policy, constructivism also provides added information which can help to explain changes in foreign policy.
French Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War
Like all major powers, France’s relations with the international system are highly complex. Just as one cannot understand the meanderings of US foreign policy without any reference to Wilsonian idealism or separate the then-Soviet Union or China from their self-perceptions as revolutionary leaders, so one should not reduce France to a state merely seeking to increase its international power. Leaving aside for the moment the ambiguities of the concept of power itself, it is clear that the rather narrow visions of national interest proposed by realism and neorealism do not adequately express what most states normally include in their conception of national interest.
Most students of French policy, both within France and outside, emphasize a view of that country’s foreign policy, which has existed at least since the French Revolution, as one which is built on a conception of a particular international role for France. Expressed usually in terms of “French exceptionalism” or de Gaulle’s famous “certain idea of France”, this image of France, which is shared across the political spectrum, both at the elite and at the popular level, can be neatly summed up in what one French political scientist has called a “dual idea: France embodies universal values and has as its mission to spread them across the world”. 16 Pushing this view even further, an American analyst of French security policy has recently observed that because
they have believed that French greatness had conditioned the world to look to France for inspiration, the French have had a strong tendency to view their national interest in general or systemic terms. French rights are thus ‘human rights’....France’s greatness was to be universal. 17
This tendency to assimilate its own values to universally-held values undoubtedly constitutes an important part of France’s international identity. Without some understanding of this identity, and the identity crisis which hit France during the first years of the post-Cold War, there is a great risk of seriously misreading French foreign policy, and of seeing it either as nothing more than mere arrogance, or simply as rhetoric to conceal more basic material interests.
There is no need to analyze here in any depth all the contents or the history of French identity. 18 Apart from the view of a nation which has a world-wide mission to accomplish, or in more mundane terms, an international role which includes ensuring French influence throughout the world as an intrinsically fundamental value, at the heart of French foreign policy lies the pursuit of maintaining an important place for France in the international system, or its rang. This objective involves not only maintaining prestige as an end itself, 19 but also taking steps to ensure that other states are made aware of France’s presence on the international stage, whether that involves restricting selection of the head of an important international organization to candidates who speak adequate French or publicly opposing perceived excesses of jurisdiction on the part of the United States.
When a state considers that the world needs its influence and that maintaining its international standing represents a vital part of that influence, then any change in the international system, especially one which redistributes power or supposes a new ranking between the members of the system is likely to produce a crisis over that state’s self-image and its sense of identity. There have been at least three moments which have called for reassessment of France’s place in the world since the end of the Second World War, and each have tended to be followed by some form of French international assertiveness. In 1945, France struggled to regain recognition on the part of the “Big Three” of its great power status. After the Suez disaster of 1956, France, like Britain, was forced to realize that it was not in the same league as the two superpowers. This event was followed by a gradual estrangement with the US and culminated in the reformulation of French foreign policy associated with Charles de Gaulle. On both of these occasions France had to accept that it had become a “middle-rank” power on the world stage, even if was still one of the great European powers. It came to terms with this new situation by defining itself as a medium-sized power with world-wide responsibilities, which enjoyed a quasi-sphere of influence in French-speaking Africa, including former Belgian territories, and a presence in the Pacific, reaffirmed by its nuclear tests on the French-held island of Muraroa. However, the end of the Cold War created probably the deepest crisis in France’s international identity.
Study of French policy, especially during the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, tends to indicate that France was groping for a way to reassert itself within the international system. As one assessment of France’s national role conceptions has put it, the end of the Cold War “enabled France to free itself and to assert an ideology based on a universalist model — in competition with the American one — thus giving identity variables more importance”. 20 It could no longer navigate between the two superpowers. It was, to say the least, ambivalent about the rise of the new Germany. The exclusiveness of permanent UNSC membership has been challenged, both in Europe and among the developing countries. Even France’s place in French-speaking Africa, especially after the events in Rwanda in 1994, has also been called into question. Thus France has had to struggle with both aspects of the identity problem: defining exactly what it is and what it stands for, and then getting the other actors of the international system to accept that definition. Even eight years after the fall of the Wall, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hubert Védrine, echoed the problems his countrymen were still going through in trying to reformulate their place in the world, when he talked of the existence of
a sort of wavering in the French mind between what we proclaim, our universal role, our voice, our rank, our principles, our values and the exact opposite, which is a sort of melancholy when we see that it is not working and that we are not the center of the world. 21
Though this identity crisis was brought on largely by the end of the Cold War, it could also be said that France has also been going through a deep societal identity crisis, caused by the effects of globalization. The most profound expression of this situation is to be found in the debate over immigration, which raises questions not only about France’s material capacity to absorb both legal and illegal immigrants from the developing countries and Eastern Europe, but also about the changes they would bring socially and culturally and which have directly challenged the traditional French melting-pot, known as the “Republican model”. 22 In particular, the fear of the rise of Islam, the second most important religion in France today, especially in its fundamentalist versions, has exercised a strong hold on all sections of society as a perceived obstacle to integration, a concern reinforced by a series of fundamentalist-inspired terrorist attacks in 1995-1996. Resistance in some quarters to further encroachments on French sovereignty by the European Union (EU), which reached its culminating point in the referendum over the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, also reflected anxiety over the future of French identity. 23 The rise on the far-right of the National Front, the ongoing debate over what to do with illegal immigrants, and the controversy over wearing the Muslim headscarf in schools, are the most visible manifestations of these French fears about the future of their country’s identity.
In the realm of foreign policy, redefining French identity, both at the discursive level and in practice, has led to some important changes. These have concerned not so much a reassessment of France’s traditional claim to its status, its rang, as an attempt to express it in other ways. The White Paper on Defense published in 1994, whose main principles were immediately endorsed by the government of the day, provides a good insight into how French policy makers have tried to reconstruct their country’s identity in the post-Cold War era. Thus they propose a concept of rang which goes beyond the customary realist or neorealist view of power, and which they define as
a particular combination of factors of not only economic but also military, diplomatic, or even scientific and cultural power. It takes into account the influence exercised through la francophonie as well as immaterial elements, linked to the strength of ideas and a certain vocation for the universal. 24
France sees itself as a power whose interests correspond to its international responsibilities, which come from “its obligations as a permanent member of the Security Council, its history, its particular vocation”. 25 French leaders also like to remind the world, and their countrymen, that their country is the “planet’s fourth commercial power”. 26 And so, thanks to its international standing, France “belongs to the few countries that can influence stability in the world”. 27
However, French foreign policy can no longer be conducted through traditional inter-state diplomacy. It now goes through institutions, in particular through the European Union and the UN, a body which has become, in the words of a former Foreign Minister, “a fundamental axis of our foreign policy”. 28 As for the EU, the authors of the White Paper on Defense go so far as to decree that maintaining France’s rang “will be largely linked to its ability to influence the construction of Europe and the coming developments of Europe”. 29 These two statements clearly lay out the ambitions of French foreign policy, and both involve acting through institutions, which are no longer seen as mere constraints but as facilitators and as initiators.
To take such a view of French policy does not mean looking at the French conception of institutions through rose-tinted glasses. France has not suddenly become a country which acts as though institutions have taken the place of states in the international system. It still sees them as an opportunity to extend its influence, but it has also accepted the need for a multilateral approach to international relations. Such an approach involves acting through institutions not simply to coordinate policies between states or to reflect the result of some sort of lowest common denominator but to formulate policies and common behaviors which express in some way the collective will of the members of those institutions, and which will be considered binding on them. As John Ruggie has so succinctly put it, “multilateralism is an institutional form that coordinates relations among three or more states on the basis of generalized principles of conduct”. 30
Exercising influence under multilateralism supposes the capacity to elaborate and to get accepted by the other major players those norms and principles which shape and order behaviors. It is here that France places much of its claim to its rang or status as an important power. In particular, it has attempted to feature amongst the “norm entrepreneurs” of the world, a concept which has been defined as “an individual or an organization that sets out to change the behavior of others”. 31 Thanks to the leading role played by the Franco-German tandem in developing European integration from the very beginning, France has obviously had the opportunity to act as a norm entrepreneur within the European Union. Despite the part it played in drafting the UN Charter of Human Rights in 1948, French aloofness from the United Nations tended to make that role more difficult to play in that institution in the past. The end of the Cold War and the easing of tensions between the two main protagonists of that era within the Security Council have broadened the scope for taking on the task of norm entrepreneur by a lesser state bent on influencing the course of international affairs.
Going beyond the obvious security and commercial interests which every state promotes and defends, the main characteristics of French identity in the post-Cold War world have contributed to the construction of less tangible interests which have tended to shape its foreign policy long-term objectives and its more immediate practice. First among these interests is the need to maintain French influence, and in particular its status as a major international player, its rang, without which France would soon find itself on the sidelines. In second place, it aims for a world where politics goes through multilateral institutions, and where decisions involving international peace and security must be clearly authorized by these institutions. 32 Thirdly, this new emphasis on multilateralism has brought changes to the practice of one of the central values, or interests, of traditional Gaullist foreign policy, that of national independence, or more strictly of stretching the frontiers of the autonomy of French foreign policy. Reference is still made to this value, but the practice of French policy in the EU and the UN would appear to indicate a shift toward exercising influence through such institutions, and not to act alone. In other words, France accepts the constraints of institutions, will use all the means at its disposal to assert its position and to bring others around to its position, but also tacitly agrees that it cannot act independently of these bodies. In fact, throughout the crisis with Iraq, France has criticized those countries — i.e. the US and Britain — which have moved without sufficient authority from the UN. Fourthly, it continues to see itself as the leader of la francophonie, both as a concept — that group of countries which either have French as one of their national or official languages, or use it extensively in their everyday life — and as a formal group of international institutions. Fifthly, in keeping with its role as a norm entrepreneur, those norms which it has convinced others to adopt will act as a constant point of reference both for its own conduct and for that of other states. Finally, France must defend the various components of its identity and ensure that they are recognized by the other major powers, in particular the United States.
French Policy Toward Iraq After the Gulf War
The broader view of interests which has just been mapped out is needed to fully understand French policy toward Iraq. This policy has given rise to so many misunderstandings in the United States, to a large extent because the press and the politicians tend to see it as just another manifestation of the perceived general objectiveof blocking US policy whenever France gets the chance, and which is often presented as the main aim behind its foreign policy.
The typical American view of France and its identity has been well summarized by a senior administration official, who complained that the “French have a complex that drives them to see the United States as an obstacle to their wish to play a greater role in the world. They have not accepted the fact that the United States is the most powerful country in Europe”. 33 An even more deprecating comment from a journalist of a well-respected US newspaper, who scoffed at the French, hopefully with tongue-in-cheek, for being “long deluded into thinking a first-rate cuisine makes for a first-rate power”, 34 says a lot about how seriously Americans take France’s claims to great-power status.
Judgement of French motives for their policy toward Iraq, especially in the US, also tends to take a rather narrow view of what France has been trying to achieve. In the words of one journalist, talking of French objections to US-led raids against Baghdad in September 1996, explained that they were “acting in their economic and commercial self-interest — they were major customers of Iraqi oil before sanctions were imposed on Saddam’s regime — and also out of their historic self-image as contrarians”. 35
When one looks more closely at France’s Iraq policy since the end of the Cold War, it can be seen that this country has broadly supported the US objective of forcing Saddam Hussein to respect UNSC resolutions, though it has often differed, sometimes vehemently, over the means to achieve it. French policy has centered on seven issues: Iraq’s compliance with UNSC resolutions on recognizing Kuwaiti sovereignty and eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, regional stability, the norms to be followed in dealing with Iraq, sanctions, protection of the Iraqi civil population, Iraq’s return to the international community, and respect for the authority of the Security Council. On each of these questions, France has formulated its own position and has tended to act consistently on it. To understand why and how France has adopted this policy, one must begin by analyzing the interests at stake. It will then be possible to illustrate how this policy has been applied by taking the example of one of the central issues dividing France from the US and Britain over dealing with Iraq, that of using the weapon of sanctions.
France began its close commercial and political relationship with Iraq in the sixties. For the French, this country represented a secularized, modernizing state, vital for political and strategic stability in the Middle East. So it is not surprising that France supported Iraq in the war which it fought against Iran in 1980-1988. It was defending not only its commercial interests but also a bulwark against the perceived threat of the Islamic revolution. When Saddam Hussein’s troops overran Kuwait in August 1990, Iraq owed France between 28 and 40 billion francs ($5-7.5 billion), much of which had been spent on arms, and had reached an agreement on rescheduling this huge debt. 36 Despite this important economic interest, France joined, if rather reluctantly, the international embargo decreed by the UN against Iraq. It also had little choice but to back the US-led coalition against Iraq, even though it tried, right up to the final moments of the January 1991 ultimatum, to put forward its own solution to the crisis.
France’s participation in a war which it did not want has been interpreted invarious ways. For some observers, probably the majority, France took part to avoid being marginalized and to assert its rang. 37 For others, and this would include France’s decision-makers themselves, involvement in the war was expected to give France a voice in the postwar settlement in the Middle-East. 38
In his analysis of France’s actions in the war, Stanley Hoffmann has emphasized the fact that it demanded that every step toward war be approved by the Security Council, so that the UN acted as a “kind of welcome substitute for NATO”, an institution which it did not wish to see have a role out-of-area. 39 Insistence on putting the UNSC to the forefront as the source of all authority for actions against Iraq became in itself a centralelement of French national interests. Clearly, as a permanent member of this body, France was ensuring its rang amongst the players on the world stage. But to reduce French motives to maintaining its international status neglects the fact that this is also one of the very few international institutions with any legitimate effect on inter-state conflicts.
Within two weeks of the end of the war, President Mitterrand declared, in front of President Bush, that his country would try to serve the intentions of the Security Council, but would go no further. 40 France proposed three norms or guiding principles for the actions of the Council toward Iraq, and which, in themselves, express a French national interest: respect for Iraq’s national sovereignty, strict interpretation and application of international law, as established by the resolutions of the UNSC and the “right to humanitarian interference”. The first two norms call for little explanation. France has always upheld the principle of respect for national sovereignty. In the case of Iraq, this meant, in the words of the then Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, that the UN was not in the business of overthrowing the governments of member states, but was there “to ensure respect for the sovereignty of states and international law, to which each one must submit itself”. 41 By insisting on the Security Council as a vital source of international law, France not only saw itself as an important participant in creating that law, but also made respect of the resolutions of the Council a prime source of legitimacy in dealing with Iraq, and, by implication, outlawing any action which did not enjoy its explicit authorization.
It is with the concept of the “right to humanitarian interference” 42 , its own version of humanitarian intervention, that France put forward its claim to be a norm entrepreneur. The origins of the idea of humanitarian intervention go back at least as far as the 19 th century, 43 so, in that sense, the French have invented nothing new. Its most recent version was launched by an international conference in Paris in 1987, organized by one of the founders of the NGO “Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Bernard Kouchner, and a professor of international law, Mario Bettati, who then produced a book outlining their ideas. 44 Two resolutions sponsored by France and adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1988 and 1990 provided the basis for humanitarian assistance and “emergency corridors” allowing aid to be sent to those areas victims of natural catastrophes or similar emergency situations. French decision-makers then began to talk of extending this notion to include a “right of assistance, of interference or of intervention” whenever democracy or human rights were under threat. 45 It became very much a priority when President Mitterrand decided that something had to be done to protect the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s troops. The idea then became a proposal before the Security Council, whose members received it very coolly initially, and then adopted it as Resolution 688, the text of reference for the norm of the “right to humanitarian interference”.
This concept has met with a lot of skepticism, especially in France itself. Thumerelle and Le Prestre see France’s humanitarian actions as motivated primarily by “a concern for maintaining its status within a community of nations (Europe, liberal democracies) rather than by one stemming from its worldwide role of champion of democracy and protector of human rights”. 46 Others are even more scathing. One observer has questioned the whole idea of humanitarian interference, accusing it of being “biased and dependent on the good will of the powerful of the day”, even likening it to the Soviet doctrine of “limited sovereignty” and claiming that “it could not raise the status of France in a period of rapid and fundamental upheavals”. 47 Yet another makes the more serious charge that nothing guarantees that with the humanitarian operations carried out in the name of the “right to interference” in Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia or Rwanda “the Security Council has opened the way to serious jurisprudence in this area”. 48
Despite the validity of some of these criticisms, there can be no doubt that France has put forward an international norm, for whatever reasons, and however imperfect it may be in its application, and has used it as a point of reference for its approach to Iraq. In particular, humanitarian considerations have constantly played a part in French assessments of just how far sanctions and the use of force can be applied against that country to obtain its compliance with UNSC resolutions. What counts here is the establishment and the maintenance of norms and their incorporation into a state’s identity, on the one hand, and their contribution to foreign policy practice, on the other. In other words, motivations, rather than declared intentions, are very difficult to impute. As for consequences, they may be important for evaluating the success of a policy, but they matter less when trying to gauge how and to what extent norms, whatever their moral value, actually enter into the formulation of that policy and the international conduct of the state in question.
France has never made a secret wanting to bring Iraq back into the international community as soon as possible, both for its own commercial reasons and in the interest of regional security. However, it has also insisted that this could only happen if Iraq publicly recognized Kuwait sovereignty and its territorial integrity and complied with UNSC resolutions on the destruction of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. As long as the Security Council sticks to these objectives, France will back it. However, if any state (i.e. the US) should attempt to use the Council to achieve other aims, such as changing the regime or permanently weakening Iraq economically and militarily, then it will not be able to count on French support. As far as France is concerned, efforts should be made for a gradual rapprochement with Iraq at the economic and even the political level. It also calls for a reassessment of the policy of full-scale sanctions and bombings, with their threats to the lives and safety of the civilian population, which it considers both morally questionable and of doubtful efficiency. This has meant taking its own measures to improve relations with Iraq, lobbying for an easing of sanctions, questioning the actions of UNSCOM, balking at the extension of no-fly zones and refusing to join, or even to endorse, air raids against Iraqi targets. None of these actions have exactly endeared France to the US administration.
The question of sanctions shows just how France’s state interests have been shaped by its emerging post-Cold War identity. Even when the UNSC decreed its first economic and financial sanctions in August 1990, the French government did all it could, unsuccessfully, to prevent them from becoming a total blockade. It continued to try and restrict the application of a full-blown sanctions policy against Iraq, and as early as the first week after the Gulf War, then-Foreign Minister Roland Dumas was already talking of the eventual possibility of lifting economic sanctions “to avoid giving the feeling that the coalition would was unremittingly against Iraq”, adding that it was necessary to “facilitate things on the humanitarian level”. 49
Three years later, his Gaullist successor, Alain Juppé, laid down strict guidelines for imposing sanctions. They should be applied to “states which violate international legality”, they should remain the prerogative of the Security Council and have the “precisely defined” object of “putting pressure on a given government and making it change its attitude”. Sanctions should also respect three other conditions: (1) all other diplomatic avenues should have been exhausted, (2) the resolution should say explicitly what acts on the part of the punished state would allow the lifting of sanctions and (3) maintaining sanctions in place should be subject to a regular and honest reexamination. 50 Clearly the ground had been prepared for a reappraisal of the French policy toward sanctions.
In fact, France had already made its first move on this issue in March 1994, when the vote to renew sanctions came up in the Security Council. It then declared that it considered that Iraq had made enough progress on respecting the Council’s resolutions, especially on the question of arms control, that it was time to send a positive message to Baghdad, which would include proposing a period of probation leading to an eventual partial suspension of sanctions. In the summer of the same year France went even further. On the basis of declarations coming from the chairman of UNSCOM, Rolf Eskeus, it announced its support for a six month probation period which could result in applying article 22 of resolution 687, which allowed Iraq to export some of its oil to pay for food imports.
Despite the UNSC’s adoption of resolution 986 which provided for the export of Iraqi oil in exchange for food in April 1995, France began to air its concerns about the “disastrous” humanitarian situation in Iraq and which, in the words of Foreign Minister Hervé de Charrette, could have “consequences for the international community if we don’t do anything now to improve the situation”. 51 France then began to play a more active role on this issue. On the one hand, it tried to convince Iraq to accept resolution 986, and, on the other, it worked within the UN, persuading the Council to send a delegation to Baghdad to evaluate the situation and suggesting that the UN provide direct aid to Iraq. It finally succeeded in having resolution 986 applied in December 1996, in spite of lack of Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM, the US decision to extend the exclusion zone in the south of the country and American attempts to condemn Iraq for sending troops to back one of the feuding Kurd factions in the north.
Finally, in October 1997, Franco-American differences over sanctions came to a head when the US sought to use the difficulties which UNSCOM inspectors were meeting as they tried to carry out their tasks in Iraq as a pretext for imposing further sanctions. France joined Russia and China in the Security Council to abstain on the vote of resolution 1134, which not only created new sanctions if Iraq refused to cooperate with UNSCOM but also maintained the other sanctions for another six months. The French ambassador to the UN justified his country’s opposition to the resolution on the grounds that it made absolutely no allowance for the progress already made in eliminating weapons of mass destruction by Iraq. 52
In developing its own particular position over sanctions, France has displayed the complexities of the process of formulating its national interests. Several readings of these interests are possible, none of which provides on its own a totally convincing account of French behavior. Of course, France has a strong financial and commercial interest in bringing Iraq back into the international system. It is owed a huge debt, and business interests have been keeping up the pressure for stronger trade ties with a potentially lucrative market, which is all the more appealing because the French were largely left out of the contracts for rebuilding Kuwait. But it is also true that societal pressures have only limited influence on French foreign policy-making, especially in the realm of security. 53 If private commercial interests have provided the main impetus for demanding the easing of sanctions, then one would expect such a policy to be more prominent under a right-wing administration. In fact, it has been advocated by four different governments, two of the right and two of the left. True the demand for lifting sanctions was articulated forcefully for the first time by a right-wing administration, but that is probably more a reflection of the evolving domestic situation than of real policy differences. 54 It should not be forgotten that the decision to abstain against resolution 1134 was made by the Socialist government of Lionel Jospin, or more precisely, jointly by Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, Mitterrand’s former foreign affairs adviser, and Gaullist president, Jacques Chirac.
Does this policy also reflect a desire to counter the United States? There may well be an element of traditional mistrust of the “Anglo-Saxons” in French policy toward Iraq, but such an analysis does not take into account France’s overall support for the general aim of getting Saddam Hussein to respect UNSC resolutions. France has made it clear that it wants explicit UNSC authorization for any actions against Iraq. This undoubtedly puts some restraints on American interpretations of just how far a UN mandate really goes, but to raise the question of the nature and extent of this mandate does not constitute of itself proof of persistent, or mindless, anti-Americanism. Since no other superpower exists, it is not possible to predict that France would not have acted in precisely the same way to maintain some form of balance against perceived unilateral exercises in power coming from any quarter.
France has practiced a fairly consistent attitude toward sanctions since the end of the Gulf War, which indicates that this policy represents more than a mere tactic. It corresponds to a strongly felt belief, shared across the political spectrum. What appears particularly consistent in this policy is its association with humanitarian preoccupations, which in turn reflect a longstanding characteristic of the French identity, and which has been reasserted with the adoption of the norm of the “right of humanitarian interference”. These humanitarian considerations have contributed to formulating a state interest, not only in removing an obstacle to greater trade relations with Iraq, but also in emphasizing the human dimension of a policy which has not had much obvious effect on changing the international conduct of its main target. In this way France appears to be seeking more than mere reaffirmation of its rang. It is also stating its claim to be considered as a major power with a universalistic mission.
Through its approach toward sanctions Iraq, France can be seen to express its emerging identity as a state which acts through institutions. As Peter Katzenstein reminds us, “institutions do not merely create efficiencies. They also express identities”. 55 By insisting on Security Council resolutions as the only source of legitimacy for actions against Iraq, and by explicitly judging that country’s conduct and its demand for the lifting of sanctions solely with reference to the degree of its compliance with these resolutions, France is emphasizing its institutionalist identity. One may well question its motives for acting this way, but the stated intentions and the consequences of such behavior are the creation of an institutionalist practice, based on an interest in maintaining a particular multilateral institution, the United Nations, at the heart of the international system, not simply as a constraint on state action but above all as an inescapable source of authority.
Conclusion
By choosing what should be a cut-and-dried case in favor of a realist approach to foreign policy analysis, it is possible to see the limits of this way of interpreting international relations. Basically, it falls short as a plausible hypothesis, let alone a theory of foreign policy, on at least four grounds. In the first place, its assumption of a “unitary rational actor”, always calculating the costs and benefits of its actions, raises problems about exactly what we mean by “rational”. In the terms of his own policy objectives, Saddam Hussein could certainly be considered rational, but given the amount of material and human destruction he seems willing to bear, many external observers would tend to disagree that his actions constitute a rational policy. On the other hand, if we extend the concept to cover most behaviors that are internally consistent, then it begins to lose all relevance. As for the notion of “unitary”, with its implication that “politics stop at the water’s edge”, it eschews any hint of a domestic policy debate which could lead to other outcomes. At first glance the French case would appear to confirm the realist view of a unitary actor, but in actual fact the national consensus on foreign policy only really dates back to the election of François Mitterrand to the presidency in 1981. Since then, profound and significant differences have arisen within and between the political parties, over such foreign policy issues as the decision to go to war in the Gulf and the Maastricht Treaty. Even such a strong neorealist as Kenneth Waltz has had to admit that any “theory of international politics requires also a theory of domestic politics, since states affects the system’s structure even as it affects them”. 56
Secondly, both realist and neorealist assumptions about the nature of state interests are far too narrow, and make little allowance for identity as a major factor in the formulation of interests. Again France, as has been shown, offers a prime example of how its conception of its national interests is inextricably linked to its self-perceptions asan important actor of the international stage. Clearly it has not yet totally convinced the United States of the validity of its definition of those interests as far as dealing with Iraq is concerned, and many observers question French motivations. However, motivations remain in the realm of conjecture, and are often imputed on a less than even-handed view of France’s opposition to certain US actions and interests, rather than on that country’s declared intentions, which is all that most diplomats have to work with until they have evidence to the contrary.
Thirdly, the traditional realist conception of anarchy is too stark. Anarchy may or may not be “what states make of it”, but the rise of institutions, their growing role in international relations and their impact on state behaviors have changed the nature of anarchy. They have also affected how states act within the international system and conduct their relations with each other, especially since the end of the Cold War. 57
Finally, realism does not offer an adequate explanation for change in the international system or in foreign policy. Here we come up against the so-called status quo bias of realism, which should be questioned not so much for ideological reasons, since every theoretical approach in international relations carries to some extent an explicit or implicit ideological view of the world, but on empirical and epistemological grounds. With its tendency to portray key concepts such as anarchy, national interest, balance of power, as basic, unchangeable attributes of international relations which always reassert themselves in the end, it would seem to condemn the international system to nothing more than the illusion of change.
To be fair, there have been some very serious efforts by realist scholars to offer a theory of change in the international system. In particular, Robert Gilpin has made the link between transformation of the international system and war, and Paul Kennedy has explained in some detail the relationship between technological change, economic development and the rise and fall of the great powers. 58 Fascinating as these two controversial works are, they tend toward a cyclical view of history, with too much emphasis on the recurring features of the international system to provide a satisfactory theory of change.
To meet these objections, realism must either be transformed dramatically to become something else, or, as I have tried to show, incorporate other theoretical approaches to correct it, or, to be more precise, to formulate a more comprehensive framework which could eventually contribute to a general theory of foreign policy. Adopting this line of thinking does not mean we should fall into the trap of what Steve Smith has quite rightly condemned as a “pick-and-mix option” in which one uses the theoretical approach suited best to analyze or explain a particular issue. 59 All that has been suggested here is that one single approach will never suffice to explain foreign policy. Realism is probably quite right to go on treating the state as the principal actor in the international system, despite the growing influence of globalization and transnationalism. Moreover, the study of foreign policy is predicated by definition on the importance of the state within that system. But one can hardly build a convincing theory on so little.
Constructivism provides a way to show how state identities can evolve, under what conditions, and how these change can effect foreign policy. It also emphasizes the growing role of norms in the post-1945 international system, especially since the end of the Cold War. These norms are transmitted or learnt by states through their interactions with institutions. So constructivism cannot be divorced from a study of how institutions affect state behaviors. Yet, constructivism does not constitute in or by itself a social or political theory, but rather a methodology or a sociological interpretation of reality which can enrich and render more sophisticated the various approaches to a general theory of international relations.
As for institutionalism, it has been contended in this paper that institutions have become fundamental to foreign policy analysis. These bodies have asserted their position in the conduct of foreign policy for at least two reasons. Firstly, mounting empirical evidence shows that institutions act not only as a constraint on how states conduct themselves but also as an enabling factor, producing those principles, norms and rules to which states tend to refer to justify or to legitimize their policy choices and their actions. Secondly, they have become the fora where states pursue most of their foreign policy objectives. In a word, they have become central to the foreign policy of most of those states which participate actively in the international system, a development which has accelerated since the end of the Cold War.
Realism would predict that France would subordinate its foreign policy to its traditional material and military interests. Presumably such behavior would be translated into defending sovereignty and using institutions as a way to promote those narrowly-defined interests. However, even if one tries to apply the more subtle neorealist analysis of Joseph Grieco, and his use of the concept of “voice opportunities”, which he defines as “institutional characteristics whereby the views of partners (including relatively weak partners) are not just expressed but reliably have a material impact on the operations of the collaborative arrangement”, 60 one does not describe adequately the impact of institutions on French foreign policy. Conscious acceptance of loss of sovereignty in the EU cannot be adequately accounted for by interpreting it as a mere attempt to extend French influence, let alone as a reinforcement of its material interests. By the same token, France’s actions in the UNSC over sanctions against Iraq reflect more than just a desire to counter American policy aims, or to oppose the remaining superpower for the sake of opposing it. Only by looking at this country’s emerging post-Cold War identity and the interests it is helping to shape, and the place that institutions and institutional norms are beginning to take in the definition of that identity, can one begin to understand exactly what France has been trying to achieve.
Endnotes
*: This paper is based on research project of the Centre d’études des politiques étrangères et de sécurité (CÉPÉS) at the Université du Québec à Montréal on major powers and security institutions, financed by the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et de l’Aide à la Recherche, Quebec. My thanks to Hélène Viau, MA student in political science at the Université du Québec, for her assistance in gathering material on French foreign policy.
Prepared for presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Back.
Note 1: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1994, p. 823 (italics in the original). Back.
Note 2: See the excellent review article by Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy”, World Politics, 51, 1, October 1998, pp. 144-172. Back.
Note 3: For example, according to a BVA poll taken on December 18-19 1998, the French government’s decision not to back Anglo-American air strikes against Irak in December 1998 was supported by 76% of the adult population, http://www.bva.fr/sondages/irak2.html. Back.
Note 4: Stephen Philip Kramer, Does France Still Count? The French Role in the New Europe, Westport Connecticut and London, Praeger, Washington Papers/164, 1994, p. 26. Back.
Note 5: “Discours du Président de la République, M. Jacques Chirac à l’occasion du 50 e anniversaire de l’ONU”, July 5 1995, La politique étrangère de la France — Textes et documents (herafter, textes et documents), Paris, La Documentation française, July-August 1995, p. 5 Back.
Note 6: See Maurice Vaïsse, “Indépendance et solidarité”, in Maurice Vaïsse et al., (eds), La France et l’OTAN 1949-1996, Brussels, Les Editions du complexe, 1996, pp. 219-243., and Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe. De Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’Alliance atlantique 1958-1969, Paris, Plon/Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1996, pp. 36-43. Back.
Note 7: See, for example, Stanley Hoffmann, “French Dilemmas and Strategies in the New Europe”, in Robert O. Keohane et al. (eds), After the Cold War. International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991, Cambridge, Massachussetts, and London, Harvard University Press, 1993, pp. 127-147. Back.
Note 8: John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”, International Security, 19, 3, Winter 1994/95, p. 47. Back.
Note 9: See Ronald L. Schweller and David Priess, “A Tale of Two Realisms: Expanding the Institutions Debate”, Mershon International Studies Review, 41, 1, May 1997, pp. 1-32. According to these two authors, all realists characterize institutions “not in terms of cooperation to promote the general welfare of states as liberals past and present tend to do, but rather as a form of of collusion among powerful oligopolistic actors to serve their perceived interests at the expense of the ‘others’, that is those states deemed to be outside the elite Great Power club or international ‘high society’”, ibid., p. 8 (italics in the original). Back.
Note 10: Robert O. Keohane, “Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge After the Cold War”, in David A. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism. The Contemporary Debate, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 271. Back.
Note 11: See Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the Atlantic Area. International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1957. See also Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO”, in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security. Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 357-399. Back.
Note 12: Of course, this begs very valid questions about how one should define “security” and what is meant by a “security institution”. By most criteria, the EU should also be considered a security institution. After all, despite its initial functionalist orientation, from the very beginning European integration was conceived as a long-term strategy to eliminate the possibility of armed conflict between the major West European powers. Back.
Note 13: Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1996, p. 3. Back.
Note 14: Jeffrey T. Checkel, “The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory”, World Politics, 50, 2, January 1998, pp. 327-328. Back.
Note 15: Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity and Culture in National Security”, in Katzenstein, p. 54. Back.
Note 16: Marcel Merle, Sociologie des relations internationales, Paris, Dalloz, 1988, 3 rd edition, p. 292. Back.
Note 17: Philip Gordon, A Certain Idea of France. French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 16. Back.
Note 18: See, for example, Brian Jenkins and Nigel Copsey, “Nation, Nationalism and National Identity in France”, in Brian Jenkins ans Spyros A. Sofos (eds.), Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe, London and New York, Routledge, 1996, pp. 83-100. Back.
Note 19: Alfred Grosser, “Le rôle et le rang”, in André Lewin (ed), La France et l’ONU depuis 1945, Condé-sur-Noireau, Arléa-Corlet, 1995, p. 64. Back.
Note 20: Charles Tumerelle and Philippe G. Le Prestre, “France: The Straitjacket of New Freedom”, in Philippe G. Le Prestre (ed.), Role Quests in the Post-Cold War Era. Foreign Policies in Transition, Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997, p. 145. Back.
Note 21: “Entretien du ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Hubert Védrine, avec la presse anglo-saxonne”, October 7 1997, Textes et documents, September-October 1997, p. 211. Back.
Note 22: See Michel Wievorka et al. (eds.), Une société fragmentée? Le multiculturalisme en débat, Paris, Éditions La Découverte, 1996. Back.
Note 23: On the other hand the adoption of the Euro on January 1 1999, and the vote by both Chambers of Parliament to amend the constitution to conform to the Amsterdam Treaty, which specificly assumed abandoning some national sovereignty, later the same month, raised much fewer objections, indicating that at least as far as the EU is concerned, unlike the British, most French people have come to accept this development as an irreversible fact. Back.
Note 24: Livre blanc sur la défense 1994, Paris, Union générale d’Éditions, 1994, p. 51 (italics in the original). Back.
Note 26: Jacques Chirac, “Allocation du Président de la République, M. Jacques Chirac, à l’occasion du dîner d’État offert en l’honneur du Président des Etats-Unis du Méxique, M. Ernesto Zedillo”, October 6 1997, Textes et documents, September-October 1997, p. 203. Back.
Note 27: Livre blanc, p. 51. Back.
Note 28: Alain Juppé, “Vœux du ministre des Affaires étangères, M. Alain Juppé, aux agents du Département”, January 6 1995, Textes et documents, January-February 1995, p. 16. For French post-Cold War diplomacy through institutions, see Hoffmann, pp. 142-145. Back.
Note 29: Livre blanc, p. 52. The term “construction of Europe” (“construction européenne”) in French always refers to the EU. Back.
Note 30: John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, in John Gerard Ruggie (ed.), Multilateralism Matters. The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 11. Back.
Note 31: Ann Florini, “The Evolution of International Norms”, International Studies Quarterly, 40, 3, 1996, p. 375. Back.
Note 32: In the words of the White Paper on Defense, the UNSC is “the only international authority with the right to decide coercitive measures or the use of force agains a state, outside actions of legitimate individual or collective defense under article 51 of the Charter”, and as a permanent member of the Council, France must aim at “strengthening its (France’s) influence, at allowing it to meet greater responsibilities, thus contributing to further progress, in the international community, the principles of law which it seeks to promote”, Livre blanc, p. 72. Back.
Note 33: Quoted in Thomas W. Lippman, “In Friction and in Friendship, U.S. Retains Bond With France”, The Washington Post, October 27 1996. Back.
Note 34: Richard Cohen, “Recalcitrant ‘Allies’”, The Washington Post, November 27 1997. Back.
Note 35: Charles Truehart, “U.S. Raids on Iraq Get Little European Support”, The Washington Post, September 6 1996. Back.
Note 36: For the figure of 28 billion francs, see “Les relations économiques avec la France sont en voie d’apaisement”, Le Monde, August 3 1990, and for that of 40 billion, see François Labrouillère, “Les Français premières victimes du boycott?”, Le Quotidien de Paris, August 6 1990. Back.
Note 37: For variations on this theme, see Kramer, pp. 36-7, Gordon, p. 179 and Grosser, p. 67. Back.
Note 38: See David Yost, “France and the Gulf War of 1990-1991: Political-Military Lessons Learned”, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 16, 3, September 1993, p. 352. Back.
Note 39: Hoffmann, p. 138. France changed its view on NATO’s out-of-area mission in Bosnia, but has always insisted on that it should act only with a clear mandate from the UNSC. Back.
Note 40: “Conférence de presse conjointe donnée par M. le Président de la République et son excellence George Bush, Président des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, à l’issue de leur rencontre à la Martinique”, March 14 1991, Textes et documents, March-April 1991, p. 40. Back.
Note 41: “Entretien accordé par le ministre d’État, ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Roland Dumas à RTL”, March 6 1991, Textes et documents, March-April 1991, p. 21. Back.
Note 42: The French word for “interference”, “ingérence”, does not have quite the same strong negative connotations, at least not in this context, of meddling in some one else’s affairs that it has in English, and is closer to the notion of “intervention”. Back.
Note 43: For an analysis and brief history of the concept, see Martha Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention”, Katzenstein, pp. 155-185. Back.
Note 44: On the history of the idea in France, see Olivier Russbach, ONU contre ONU. Le droit international confisqué, Paris, Éditions La Découverte, 1994, pp. 31-38, Mario Bettati, “Onu. Promoteur de l’assistance humanitaire”, in Lewin, pp. 269-293, and Mario Betatti and Bernard Kouchner (eds.), Le devoir d’ingérence: peut-on les laisser mourir?, Paris, Denoël, 1987 and Bernard Kouchner, Le malheur des autres, Paris, Éditions Odile Jacob, 1991. Kouchner and Bettati later became respectively Secretary of State, then Minister, for Humanitarian Action, and special adviser, first to the Secretary of State for Humanitarian Action, then to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Back.
Note 45: Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, quoted in Pierre Haski, “Mitterrand prend le drame kurde à cœur”, Libération, April 4 1991. Back.
Note 46: Thumerelle and Le Prestre, p. 159. Back.
Note 47: Thierry Garcin, La France dans le noveau désordre international, Brussels and Paris, Bruylant and LGDJ, 1992, pp. 88,89 and 90. Back.
Note 48: Russbach, p. 42. Back.
Note 49: “Interview du ministre d’État, ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Roland Dumas, à ‘Europe 1’”, March 4 1991, Textes et documents, March-April 1991, p. 10. Back.
Note 50: Alain Juppé, “La paix introuvable”, Le Figaro, October 25 1994. Back.
Note 51: “Assemblée générale des Nations unies — Entretien du ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Hervé de Charrette, avec la presse américaine”, September 27 1995, Textes et documents, September-October 1995, pp. 129-130. Back.
Note 52: “Irak — Intervention du représentant permanent de la France aux Nations unies”, October 23 1997, Textes et documents, September-October 1997, p. 276. Back.
Note 53: On the relative impermeability of the French foreign policy process to societal influences see Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Public Opinion, Domstic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies”, World Politics, 43, 4, July 1991, pp. 479-512. Back.
Note 54: By early 1992, most commentators saw the Socialist-led government of the time as a lame-duck administration with neither the energy nor the legitimacy to make any great foreign policy decisions. Back.
Note 55: Peter J. Katzenstein, “Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World”, in Katzenstein, p. 518. Back.
Note 56: Kenneth N. Waltz, “Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics”, in Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York, Columbia University Press, 1986, p. 331. Back.
Note 57: On the evolution of the meaning of anarchy, see, for example, Helen Milner, “The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique”, in David A. Baldwin, pp. 143-169 and Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics”, International Organization, 46, 2, Spring 1992, pp. 391-425. Back.
Note 58: Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, New York, Cambridge University Press 1981 and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York, Random House, 1987. Back.
Note 59: Steve Smith, “Foreign Policy Theory and the New Europe”, in Walter Carlnaes and Steve Smith (eds.), European Foreign Policy. The EC and Changing Perspectives in Europe, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1994, p. 10. Back.
Note 60: Joseph M. Grieco, “State Interests and Institutional Rule Trajectories: A Neorealist Interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty and European Economic and Monetary Union”, in Benjamin Frankel (ed.), Realism: Restatements and Renewal, London and Portland, Or, Frank Cass, 1996, p. 288. Back.
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