How to Assess the European Union’s Influence in International Affairs: Addressing a Major Conceptual Challenge for EU Foreign Policy Analysis

Abstract

In the discipline of European Union foreign policy analysis, quite a number of debates have focussed on determining what type of actor the EU is in international affairs (e.g. a normative power). While intellectually stimulating, these debates have regularly been held at too high a level of aggregation. Breaking the question about the EU’s clout in international affairs down to the micro-level, this contribution takes up a conceptual and methodological challenge that is currently unaddressed in the discipline: developing a method suited for studying the EU’s concrete foreign policy activities and their effects so as to assess its actual influence on global politics. Importing insights on the concept of influence from public policy analysis, it designs an analytical framework that allows for statements about whether, how, to what extent and - ultimately - under what conditions the EU exerts influence in one important arena of international affairs, namely international regimes.