Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 12/07

Perspectives

28 Summer 2007

Complete Issue (PDF, 127 pages, 801 KB)

• Figuring Out Europe: EU Metaphors in the Minds of Czech Civil Servants (PDF, 19 pages, 173 KB)
  Petr Drulák and Lucie Königová

  This article presents the results of a metaphor-oriented research programme studying civil servants’ conceptions of the European Union (EU). It reveals the metaphoricity of apparently neutral terms used when describing Europe and shows how the metaphors we use influence our understanding and expectations. Three conceptual metaphors – container, equilibrium and motion – are defined as modes of thinking about the EU’s institutional governance. Czech civil servants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government Office seem to understand the EU as either a series of intergovernmental bargains (i.e. an equilibrium) or as continuously transforming (i.e. a motion). The preferences of officials for one metaphor over another depends on their agendas: Czech Foreign Ministry officials involved with Community and intergovernmental issues tend to use the motion metaphor, while Government officials responsible for intergovernmental issues prefer the equilibrium metaphor. Yet there is a general tendency for all civil servants to portray the EU as a rule-based integration project.

• The Perils of Performance: EU Foreign Policy and the Problem of Legitimization (PDF, 19 pages, 170 KB)
  Christopher J. Bickerton

  This article argues that an important feature of contemporary EU foreign policy is the problem of legitimization. The article develops an account of EU foreign policy, from EPC in the 1970s to CFSP and the ESDP today, focusing on its function as a source of “damage limitation”. The article then goes on to look at the emergence of pan- European legitimizing strategies for EU foreign policy, concentrating on the EU‘s “performance legitimacy”. The article identifies a disjuncture between the emphasis on the external effectiveness of EU foreign policy found in this legitimizing strategy and the internal functionality of EU foreign policy encapsulated in “damage limitation”. The article finds that relations between EU member states continue to trump their collective endeavour to act in the world. The article concludes that the limit of what the EU is able to achieve in international affairs should be located in the political sociology of the EU itself. Legitimacy provides a useful conceptual prism through which these internal limits and external actions can be connected.

• Moving Politics Beyond the State: The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia (PDF, 20 pages, 263 KB)
  Erika Harris

  Whilst elaborating identity politics in the new European space, theoretically, the empirical focus of this article is on the changing relations between majorities and minorities in Central Europe, generally, and in Slovakia, specifically. The underlying premise is that European integration alters the meaning of “the nation”, the state and territory, and that there is a discernible shift from politics at the state level to a regional one, and with that a change in identity politics vis-à-vis new institutions and geographies. The question is whether this shift is accompanied by the re-emergence of ethno-regions, i.e. political/geographic entities beyond and “across” state level. Democracy and identity within the state form a contradictory relationship, whereby democracy suffers from the monopolisation of political and cultural activity by the dominant group. The Slovak- Hungarian relationship is a prime example of this dynamic. Thus, this article proposes the following points: a) that democracy may need “rescuing” from the confines of the nationstate and hence, b) a number of hypotheses about politics beyond the state. These hypotheses are then tested against a small survey conducted among the Hungarian minority in the Slovak-Hungarian border regions. The evidence provided here suggests that the EU opens new possibilities to move politics beyond the state, and in the process it removes some identity-related challenges to democracy within the state.

• Explaining Patterns of Delegation in EU Humanitarian Aid Policy (PDF, 22 pages, 194 KB)
  Helen Versluys

  This article analyses delegation patterns in the European Union's humanitarian aid policy. Rational-choice principal-agent accounts form the first theoretical perspective from which this topic is investigated. Sociological institutionalism is brought in next to round out our understanding of delegation in the field of EU humanitarian aid. Three issues are addressed. Why did EU member states delegate authority over humanitarian aid decision-making to the European Commission? How do member states maintain control over the Commission once responsibility has been transferred? And what are the implications of delegation for supranational autonomy?

• The Bosnian Peace Process: The Power-Sharing Approach Revisited (PDF, 18 pages, 165 KB)
  Nikolaos Tzifakis

  This article argues that the post-Dayton political organisation of Bosnia represents an exemplary illustration of the difficulties associated with the empirical application of the pluralist model of “consociational democracy”. The country’s political system has been predicated on the existence of consensus and the spirit of cooperation among the three ethnic groups without, however, offering any electoral or political incentives to their leaderships to cooperate. Also, the inclusion of several elements to the Dayton accords of a partition approach to conflict resolution has even encouraged the ethnic leaderships to maintain their nationalistic programs and their endeavours to exploit the aforementioned power-sharing arrangements. Indeed, the structural deficiencies of the Dayton agreement have permitted nationalists to continue implementing their ethnic agendas and have accounted for the slow progress towards the implementation of the Bosnian peace process. Therefore, this article elaborates on the international policies in Bosnia, aimed at transforming the country into a viable multiethnic state, and highlights the significance of motivations for implementing the peace process.

REVIEWS

• Haizam Amirah Fernández and Richard Youngs (eds.): The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Assessing the First Decade (PDF, 5 pages, 80 KB)
  Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano, FRIDE, 2005, 164 pages.
  Ina Lehmann

• Jan Hallenberg and Håkan Karlsson (eds.): Changing Transatlantic Security Relations. Do the US, the EU and Russia Form a New Strategic Triangle? (PDF, 4 pages, 72 KB)
  New York: Routledge, 2006, xii + 249 pages, ISBN: 0-415-39116-4.
  Sebastian Kruse

• Eric O. Hanson: Religion and Politics in the International System Today (PDF, 3 pages, 68 KB)
  Cambridge et al: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 358 pages, ISBN: 0-521-61781-2.
  Nina Westermann

• Barbara Lippert and Gaby Umbach: The Pressure of Europeanisation: From Post-Communist State Administrations to Normal Players in the EU System (PDF, 4 pages, 71 KB)
  Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2005, 203 pages, ISBN: 3-8329-1230-4.
  Marcela Jindrová

• Miroslav Nožina, Jirí Šitler and Karel Kucera: Royal Ties: King Norodom Sihamoni and the History of Czech-Cambodian Relations (PDF, 4 pages, 70 KB)
  Prague: Euromedia Group – Knižní klub, 2006, 188 pages, ISBN: 80-86938-75-1.
  Stanley Moody

• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS (PDF, 2 pages, 56 KB)