From Normative Power to Great Power Politics: Change in the European Union's Foreign Policy Identity. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series. Vol. 5, No. 14 June 2008

[From the Introduction] At the beginning of the twenty-first century, one of the most significant developments in international relations is the important and growing role of the European Union (EU) as a global player in contemporary world politics. But what exactly is that role, how does the EU manage its relations with the external world and what identity does the EU wish to present to that world? In other words, what is the foreign policy identity of the EU? These are questions that analysts and scholars have grappled with since the formal creation of the EU at Maastricht in 1991 (Treaty on European Union). The EU has worked very carefully to foster a specific type of international identity. It is generally seen and theorized as a leader in the promotion of international peace and humanitarian issues. The EU presents itself as a normative force in world politics. It has customarily placed overriding emphasis on international law, democracy, human rights, international institutions, and multilateralism in its foreign policy, while eschewing a foreign policy based on traditional national interests and material gain. The EU has, in fact, explicitly and formally announced these normative goals for its foreign policymaking in the second pillar of the Treaty on European Union, more commonly known as the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy). But in a world that has become markedly more perilous since September 11, 2001, many Europeans consider U.S. unilateralism as dangerous as the putative terrorist activity it is attempting to halt. As a result, are we seeing the foreign policy identity of the EU begin to change? Does the EU see itself as a possible balance against the primacy of the United States? In other words, does the EU show signs of transforming to a more traditional foreign policy orientation; one based on traditional great power politics and geared towards ensuring the most basic of state interests: survival, security and power? This paper will investigate this transforming foreign policy identity of the EU by seeking to answer the following questions: If the EU’s foreign policy identity is indeed changing, then how is it changing, what is it becoming, and most importantly, what is causing it to change? I will argue that the EU’s foreign policy identity is changing from a normative power to an identity based more closely on a great power politics model; and that the influence of epistemic communities or knowledge based networks is a primary catalyst for this change

Stochastic Dynamics of Bionanosystems: Multiscale Analysis and Specialized Ensembles

An approach for simulating bionanosystems, such as viruses and ribosomes, is presented. This calibration-free approach is based on an all-atom description for bionanosystems, a universal interatomic force field, and a multiscale perspective. The supramillion-atom nature of these bionanosystems prohibits the use of a direct molecular dynamics approach for phenomena like viral structural transitions or self-assembly that develop over milliseconds or longer. A key element of these multiscale systems is the cross-talk between, and consequent strong coupling of, processes over many scales in space and time. We elucidate the role of interscale cross-talk and overcome bionanosystem simulation difficulties with automated construction of order parameters (OPs) describing supra-nanometer scale structural features, construction of OP dependent ensembles describing the statistical properties of atomistic variables that ultimately contribute to the entropies driving the dynamics of the OPs, and the derivation of a rigorous equation for the stochastic dynamics of the OPs. Since the atomic scale features of the system are treated statistically, several ensembles are constructed that reflect various experimental conditions. The theory provides a basis for a practical, quantitative bionanosystem modeling approach that preserves the cross-talk between the atomic and nanoscale features. A method for integrating information from nanotechnical experimental data in the derivation of equations of stochastic OP dynamics is also introduced.Comment: 24 page

Status Quo Bias, Multiple Priors and Uncertainty Aversion

Motivated by the extensive evidence about the relevance of status quo bias both in experiments and in real markets, we study this phenomenon from a decision-theoretic prospective, focusing on the case of preferences under uncertainty. We develop an axiomatic framework that takes as a primitive the preferences of the agent for each possible status quo option, and provide a characterization according to which the agent prefers her status quo act if nothing better is feasible for a given set of possible priors. We then show that, in this framework, the very presence of a status quo induces the agent to be more uncertainty averse than she would be without a status quo option. Finally, we apply the model to a financial choice problem and show that the presence of status quo bias as modeled here might induce the presence of a risk premium even with risk neutral agents.Status quo bias, Ambiguity Aversion, Endowment Effect, Risk Premium

The Price of Flexibility: Towards a Theory of Thinking Aversion

The goal of this paper is to model an agent who dislikes large choice sets because of the "cost of thinking" involved in choosing from them. We take as a primitive a preference relation over lotteries of menus and impose novel axioms that allow us to separately identify the genuine preference over the content of menus, and the cost of choosing from them. Using this, we formally define the notion of thinking aversion, much in line with the definitions of risk or ambiguity aversion. We represent such preference as the difference between a monotone and affine evaluation of the content of the set and an anticipated thinking cost function that assigns to each set a thinking cost. We further extend this characterization to the case of monotonicity of the genuine rank and introduce a measure of comparative thinking aversion. Finally, we propose behavioral axioms that guarantee that the cost of thinking can be represented as the sum of the cost to find the optimal choice in a set and the cost to find out which is the optimal choice.Cost of Thinking, Contemplation Cost, Bounded Rationality, Preference Over Menus, Preference for Flexibility, Choice overload

Self-Assembly of Nanocomponents into Composite Structures: Derivation and Simulation of Langevin Equations

The kinetics of the self-assembly of nanocomponents into a virus, nanocapsule, or other composite structure is analyzed via a multiscale approach. The objective is to achieve predictability and to preserve key atomic-scale features that underlie the formation and stability of the composite structures. We start with an all-atom description, the Liouville equation, and the order parameters characterizing nanoscale features of the system. An equation of Smoluchowski type for the stochastic dynamics of the order parameters is derived from the Liouville equation via a multiscale perturbation technique. The self-assembly of composite structures from nanocomponents with internal atomic structure is analyzed and growth rates are derived. Applications include the assembly of a viral capsid from capsomers, a ribosome from its major subunits, and composite materials from fibers and nanoparticles. Our approach overcomes errors in other coarse-graining methods which neglect the influence of the nanoscale configuration on the atomistic fluctuations. We account for the effect of order parameters on the statistics of the atomistic fluctuations which contribute to the entropic and average forces driving order parameter evolution. This approach enables an efficient algorithm for computer simulation of self-assembly, whereas other methods severely limit the timestep due to the separation of diffusional and complexing characteristic times. Given that our approach does not require recalibration with each new application, it provides a way to estimate assembly rates and thereby facilitate the discovery of self-assembly pathways and kinetic dead-end structures.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figure

Multiscaling for Classical Nanosystems: Derivation of Smoluchowski and Fokker-Planck Equations

Using multiscale analysis and methods of statistical physics, we show that a solution to the N-atom Liouville Equation can be decomposed via an expansion in terms of a smallness parameter epsilon, wherein the long scale time behavior depends upon a reduced probability density that is a function of slow-evolving order parameters. This reduced probability density is shown to satisfy the Smoluchowski equation up to order epsilon squared for a given range of initial conditions. Furthermore, under the additional assumption that the nanoparticle momentum evolves on a slow time scale, we show that this reduced probability density satisfies a Fokker-Planck equation up to the same order in epsilon. This approach applies to a broad range of problems in the nanosciences.Comment: 23 page