RESEARCH INTERESTS
EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN POLICY
I am currently writing a book on EU foreign policy, provisionally entitled
Europe’s Compromising Union. The book argues that work on EU foreign
policy needs to go beyond the debate between intergovernmentalism versus
supranationalism. In foreign policy terms at least, the EU is not moving
towards a pan-European state (European army, European foreign minister
etc.) nor is it reducible to clashes of national interests within Europe. To
paraphrase Stanley Hoffmann, the European state is neither obsolete nor
obstinate; it is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The book analyses
three features of state transformation relevant for foreign policy: an
avoidance of power; a shift from national interests to national ‘particularities’;
a preference for compromise over any resolute defence of principles or values.
The book concludes by arguing that we can best understand the development
of EU foreign policy by focusing on the changing balance between politics and
bureaucracy within European nation-states.
For a draft version of a paper outlining the basic ideas of the book, click here.
EUROPE’S NEO-MADISONIANS
I am also working on a project on sovereignty and legitimacy in a multi-level
Europe. The project is based around the idea that contemporary normative
accounts of the EU’s multi-level form can be framed in terms of a neo-
Madisonian approach. This refers to the analogy drawn between the EU’s multi-
level structure and Madison’s account of the separation of powers and checks
and balances developed in The Federalist. Papers outlining this argument were
presented in Ocotber, 2009, at LSE, Februrary, 2009, at the Centre for
European Studies, Harvard, and in March, 2009, at ARENA, University of Oslo.
The paper is currently under review.
SOVEREIGNTY, LAW AND POLITICS
I am participating in a research project organized by Dr Cormac MacAmlaigh
and Dr Andrew Glencross, on the relationship between law and politics in
European integration. A workshop on this theme took place on the 29
May, 2009. For more details, click here.
SOVEREIGNTY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
In 2007, I published a co-edited book, entitled Politics Without Sovereignty:
A Critique of Contemporary International Relations, with my co-editors, Philip
Cunliffe and Alex Gourevitch. The book was the fruit of a collaborative research
project, starting in 2005, aiming at exploring the contemporary meaning of
sovereignty in 21st century international politics. Sovereignty and Its
Discontents (SAID) is a British International Studies Working Group and its
website is www.said-workshop.org.
FROM BREZHNEV TO BRUSSELS
This project looks at the impact of EU enlargement on sovereignty in Eastern
Europe. It argues that the 2004 enlargement did not signal the end of
external constraints and pressures on the self-determination of states in
Eastern Europe. However, whilst before 1989 these constraints were clearly
understood as limitations on state sovereignty, today they are celebrated as
the essence of ‘postmodern sovereignty’ of the kind that prevails within the EU.
For access to the published paper on this topic, consult the list of publications.