92 research outputs found

    Pragmatic power Europe: Responding to an emerging multipolar world

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    Introduction: This paper presents a reconceptualisation of the European Union (EU) as that of pragmatic power Europe. It suggests that the emergence of a multipolar world presents a critical opportunity to re-frame our expectations and understandings of the EU as a power in the world. Enabling us to look at the EU through the lenses of both ‘what it is’ and, crucially, ‘what it can do’ relative to the position and preferences of others, pragmatic power Europe presents a broad based methodology for considering EU attitude, behaviour, the tactics it employs, and the power resources it utilises, in order to respond to the complexity, uncertainty and heterogeneity of preferences, and positions, at play in today’s multipolar world order

    NATO meeting: solidarity reinforced despite uncomfortable time for alliance to be in the spotlight

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    First paragraph: Anniversaries are meant to be a celebration. They represent a moment of reflection – a marker, a milestone, a time to look back. And therein lies their biggest problem. For anniversaries have that unfortunate effect of turning any subject – be it a past event, a married couple, or indeed an international institution – into an object of intense scrutiny. For the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) celebrating its 70th anniversary in London on December 3-4, that scrutiny has come at an unfortunate time.https://theconversation.com/nato-meeting-solidarity-reinforced-despite-uncomfortable-time-for-alliance-to-be-in-the-spotlight-12814

    Group interplay and dynamics in UN Disarmament Forums: In Search of Consensus

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    The elimination of nuclear weapons has been an objective of the United Nations (UN) since 1946. Although addressed through multiple forums, including the UN General Assembly's First Committee, Conference on Disarmament and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the possession and renunciation of nuclear weapons nevertheless remains a topic beset by multilateral stalemate and frustration over the entrenchment of positions between nuclear- and non-nuclear weapon states. Yet within these forums, disarmament politics are taking a new turn, with the emergence of new, cross-regional, cross-factional political groups working alongside more established blocs. Focusing on these group dynamics, this article argues that the emergence of new political groups, and their interplay with others, is critical to the effective functioning of disarmament negotiations. Through cooperative information exchange, encouraging policy entrepreneurship and by challenging the rigidity of entrenched bloc positioning, these new group dynamics may make an important contribution in the search for consensus within the UN

    We war-gamed an escalation of the Ukraine-Russia crisis - here's what it taught us about the real world

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    First paragraph: It is 9am on a chilly March morning. Delegates from across the world have assembled for an emergency meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s main decision-making body. The main item on the agenda: an update from the Supreme Allied Commander Europe on Russian escalations in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, to determine NATO’s response. No one doubts the gravity of the situation. Russian forces are moving west to occupy parts of Ukraine beyond the Donbas region and the Crimea. There have also been severe Russian cyber attacks on German infrastructure, while Vladimir Putin has threatened to invade Estonia. NATO’s secretary general has asked one of his predecessors, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, to join the meeting and share advice. Do not adjust your set: this meeting took place, but it was a simulation – set in a very near future in which the Ukraine has joined NATO and the UK has left the EU.https://theconversation.com/we-war-gamed-an-escalation-of-the-ukraine-russia-crisis-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-the-real-world-11380

    UK diplomacy at the UN after Brexit: challenges and opportunities

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    The outcome of the UK’s EU referendum will have far-reaching implications for its foreign policy and diplomacy and raises fundamental questions of how ‘Brexit’ will impact its relationships with Europe and the world. This is even more pertinent when looked at from the perspective of the UN where the UK has benefited considerably from its membership of the EU. This article presents the challenges and opportunities of Brexit for the UK’s diplomacy, and influence, at the UN. First, we illustrate the importance of political and regional groups within the UN. Second, we analyse how the UK has worked within such groups, and above all the EU, in two cases: human rights and nuclear weapons issues. Finally, we reflect upon how Brexit is expected to impact UK diplomacy in a UN dominated by group politics, arguing that any rewiring of UK diplomatic channels must continue to account for EU positions

    Post-Brexit diplomacy: Can the UK hope to exert leverage at the UN without recourse to the EU?

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    When it comes to international diplomacy, the UK has benefited considerably from being part of the EU. But can it maintain its influence at the UN without an EU membership? Megan Dee and Karen E. Smith outline the challenges and opportunities in this area after Brexit

    Minilateralism and effective multilateralism in the global nuclear order

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    Following the 2023 report of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, this paper addresses the relationship between minilateralism and multilateralism in the global nuclear order. The paper theorizes minilateralism as a relational concept and fluid praxis, introducing a typology of inside and outside minilateralism. It then traces and analyzes these types of minilateralism within global nuclear weapons governance from 1970 to 2020. The paper finds that how states pursue minilateralism is conditional on how they perceive the effectiveness and legitimacy of wider membership multilateral institutions in nuclear governance. How complementary minilateralism is to effective multilateralism comes down to how minilateral groupings are positioned relative to multilateral institutions, how willing and able they are to integrate their activities in those institutions, and whether they, in turn, are considered legitimate. The paper concludes with recommendations for how minilateralism can complement effective multilateralism in global nuclear weapons governance and beyond

    Minilateralism and effective multilateralism in the global nuclear order

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    Following the 2023 report of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, this paper addresses the relationship between minilateralism and multilateralism in the global nuclear order. The paper theorizes minilateralism as a relational concept and fluid praxis, introducing a typology of inside and outside minilateralism. It then traces and analyzes these types of minilateralism within global nuclear weapons governance from 1970 to 2020. The paper finds that how states pursue minilateralism is conditional on how they perceive the effectiveness and legitimacy of wider membership multilateral institutions in nuclear governance. How complementary minilateralism is to effective multilateralism comes down to how minilateral groupings are positioned relative to multilateral institutions, how willing and able they are to integrate their activities in those institutions, and whether they, in turn, are considered legitimate. The paper concludes with recommendations for how minilateralism can complement effective multilateralism in global nuclear weapons governance and beyond

    EU orchestration in the nuclear weapons regime complex

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    While often recognised as a difficult actor in global efforts addressing the proliferation, control and disarmament of nuclear weapons, the EU is also assumed to have the potential to play a more cohesive “state-like” role, especially in multilateral forum such as the NPT. Such assumptions raise expectations of EU external action and influence, which the EU then invariably fails to meet. This paper offers a reframing for how we understand the EU as an actor, focusing on its role in the nuclear weapons regime complex. Specifically, the paper considers how, and under what conditions, the EU orchestrates within and across the nuclear weapons regime complex. Drawing on the orchestration and regime complex scholarship, alongside empirical data of EU external action from 2003 to 2019, the paper shows how the EU’s natural proclivity for effective multilateralism, coupled with its functional limitations, the political cleavages impeding both the EU and multilateral progress within the regime complex, and the presence of like-minded intermediaries, create ripe conditions for EU orchestration in this field. It further argues that while the EU has struggled to inject agency within individual nuclear negotiation forums, its use of orchestration as a soft and indirect mode of governance is not only well-established but advancing. Orchestration is therefore found to serve as an important metric for understanding and evaluating the scope of EU agency in the nuclear weapons regime complex.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

    Challenging expectations: a study of European Union performance in multilateral negotiations

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    Expectations of how well the European Union (EU) performs in multilateral negotiations have often been premised upon the EU’s capabilities as a global actor and its ambition to ‘lead’. Considerable attention has subsequently been paid to the EU as an actor, and leader, within multilateral negotiations; with focus particularly given to multilateral trade and environmental negotiations where expectations of EU performance are highest. Within this discourse, highly disparate understandings of how well the EU performs have however emerged, with the EU lauded on the one hand for its improving actorness and leadership, yet lamented for its ineffectiveness and lack of influence on the other. Few efforts have however sought to move beyond questions of what the EU is, and what it wants as a negotiator, to engage instead with what the EU says, what it does, and what it achieves in a negotiation environment. Addressing these issues, the aim of this study is to evaluate EU performance in multilateral negotiations as a measure of both its negotiation behaviour and effectiveness. Conducting analysis over-time (from 1995 to 2011) and across policy-fields, including case studies covering the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); this study tests expectations of EU performance and offers explanation for why it varies. Challenging expectations in several ways, the study finds that EU performance in multilateral negotiations does not follow a pattern of being good in those fora where it is most ‘state-like’ and poor in those forum where it is least integrated, but is instead highly variable, not only between negotiation environments, but also within them. It thus finds that the EU performs neither as well as the leadership discourse suggests, nor as poorly as the effectiveness literature implies. Explanation for variation in the EU’s performance is moreover found not only in the EU’s institutional complexities and changes in structural conditions, but in how these conditions intersect to shape the EU’s level of ambition. Where the EU has high ambition, pursuing progressive goals with the EU as a distinctive preference outlier compared to its negotiation partners, the EU’s ability to persuade others to raise their ambition in support of EU preferences is limited. Instead, it is where the EU moderates its ambition; pursuing progressive objectives but maintaining some zone of agreement with negotiation partners that it performs well. The case is thus made that EU negotiation performance may be aided less by the normative distinctiveness of EU preferences and its endeavour to ‘lead’ the way, and much more by the EU’s pragmatism in finding commonality with the preference structures of its negotiation partners
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