The Quest for European Leadership in a Turbulent World
The purpose of this sabbatical is to complete a research monograph on the changing nature of European foreign policy leadership. The book presents a new theory of European leadership governance applied across a range of salient political issues, including Brexit, transatlantic relations and European security. The book synthesizes theoretical arguments and empirical findings from my work over the last decade on European foreign policy analysis to answer the key question when and why political leadership is necessary to enable common European action in foreign policy. The European Union is currently confronting a wide range of challenges which require political leadership to mobilize collective foreign policy action. But what does European leadership mean, and who can exercise it, and how?
These questions are of critical importance to the academic study of the European Union as a global actor, however, research has largely been lacking to address them. Hence, this book addresses these theoretical and empirical gaps and advances a new theory of European leadership governance. The book expands with new findings from my long-standing research on European leadership and sheds new light on role conflicts and new forms of leadership practices emerging in the EU foreign policy system after Lisbon. The sabbatical will be conducted at two world-leading European centres at Harvard and Oxford, which provides an optimal opportunity to conclude the book.
Final report
Can the European Union speak with a common voice in foreign and security policy? As war has returned to Europe and turbulence in world politics has increased, this is a pressing question that I have addressed in the research monograph produced during my RJ-sabbatical. The goals of the book have been both conceptual and empirical. The theoretical ambition of the book has been to offer an original approach to leadership grounded in sociological institutionalism and role theory that moves beyond the dominance of rationalist and functional theories. The empirical ambition has been to provide an in-depth analysis of how European leadership has been perceived and how it has emerged in EU foreign policy-making since the reforms of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. The book includes in-depth case studies of central leadership actors in EU foreign policy and explores how the multi-faceted types of European leadership have been shaped and exercised in specific contexts, such as in transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine took place half-way through my sabbatical. As I will elaborate in more detail below, this prompted me to extend the book with a new chapter focusing on European leadership during the Ukraine war. It felt urgent and important to include an analysis of this major development in Europe to enhance the relevance of the book. The new case study enabled me to probe in depth two significant empirical findings from my book, namely the rise of German leadership and supranational leadership in EU foreign policy-making.
My sabbatical was spent as a visiting research fellow at two world leading universities which contributed significantly to the quality of the book. In the autumn of 2021, I spent the Michaelmas term (Oct-Dec) at St Antony’s College, Oxford, where I worked at the European Studies Centre (ESC). My time as a visiting scholar at Oxford enabled me to expand the parts of my book that related to Brexit and the impact on EU foreign policy, given that Oxford has many leading scholars in this field. During this time, I also presented my research at the European Centre’s research seminar which, apart from attracting scholars across the whole university, also included high-ranking diplomats and officials who offered valuable feedback. Given that the ESC is keen to develop closer academic contacts and exchanges with scholars in Scandinavia and the Baltics, I was also involved in facilitating contacts between various academics and funding organizations during my time in Oxford.
The spring semester of 2022 was spent at the Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University. My time as a visiting scholar at Harvard coincided with the outbreak of war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which had a significant impact on my research, both in terms of the seminars I attended and in terms of how the book manuscript developed. I decided quite early on that this major watershed in European politics had to be incorporated in the book, which meant that I decided to include another chapter that focused on crisis leadership and the war in Ukraine. It was very valuable to be on the other side of the Atlantic while working on this chapter and concluding my analysis of leadership and transatlantic relations. During my time at Harvard, I regularly attended the research seminars – both at CES, the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School, where I was also able to discuss and present my own work on how EU-US leadership relations have fluctuated during the last three US Presidencies. During my sabbatical in the United States, I also presented my research at the annual International Studies Association (ISA) conference, which was held in Nashville, Tennessee.
The sabbatical produced three research outputs: two book-chapters in widely-used international textbooks on foreign policy and EU external studies respectively, as well as the research monograph. The book chapter on EU foreign policy is published in one of the key textbooks on foreign policy and read by students all over the world. It includes an analysis of the EU response to the war in Ukraine and is published by Oxford University Press. The other book chapter provides an overview of role theory and leadership studies in the field of EU external action studies and is part of a textbook involving leading European scholars. Below is a fuller elaboration of the contents of my research monograph:
Preliminary title and table of contents.
The Quest for Leadership: European foreign policy in a turbulent world
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. A social role theory of leadership
Chapter 3. Leadership in European foreign policy governance
Chapter 4. Leadership or management? The role of the EU High Representative
Chapter 5. Leadership by EU member states
Chapter 6. Leadership in transatlantic relations
Chapter 7. The war in Ukraine: A European leadership moment?
Chapter 8. Conclusion
The first chapter sets out the main conceptual and empirical themes of the book. It includes a discussion of the highly diverse field of leadership studies and the concept as essentially contested with a clear division between agency versus structurally focused explanations. I argue for an ontological and epistemological position that moves beyond this dichotomy, and define leadership as the activity of an actor that purposely aims to influence and guide a group towards collective goals and outcomes by making use of specific leadership strategies. The empirical puzzle I outline is that whilst the newly reformed EU foreign policy system that emerged from the Lisbon Treaty aims to centralize leadership practices, it has triggered resistance and new informal leadership practices among member states that paradoxically risk undermining the original ambition of the treaty. The second chapter goes on to outline the theoretical framework where I develop a distinct framework of analysis building on sociological role theory. The chapter elaborates a variety of scope conditions for leadership to emerge and makes a distinction between different styles of leadership.
The following four chapters (3-7) have been structured so that each chapter begins with a conceptual puzzle and/or research question which is then systematically investigated empirically. Chapter three serves as a background chapter to map out the dispersed leadership governance structures of the EU and aims to pinpoint the central actors and formal leadership functions in the policy-making processes of EU foreign policy. Chapters four and five are focused on the question how we conceive the principal-agent relationship between EU institutional actors and the member states. In chapter four, I begin a discussion of the various types of roles international executives may take in international organizations, and make a distinction between management and leadership. This distinction is then applied in the comparative analysis of how the role of the EU High Representative has evolved since the Lisbon Treaty, a period in which three different individuals occupied this post (Ashton, Mogherini and Borrell). Chapter five moves the focus to the concept of informal leadership and draws attention to the continued leadership roles that EU member states play in EU foreign policy. The study is partly based on original findings from a leadership survey with European and national foreign policy-makers. It provides insights to how member states perceive the role of big vs. small states and leadership conflicts in EU foreign policy. The following two chapters analyse European leadership in two specific contexts and cases. Chapter six draws on the concept of alter-role casting to argue that how European and American policy-makers conceive of each other is highly constitutive to European leadership conceptions in foreign policy. Based on a strategic narrative analysis of foreign policy speeches covering three US presidencies, the chapter argues that European role conceptions have fluctuated between followership and leadership in transatlantic relations. Chapter Seven examines the concept of crisis leadership and considers how European leadership has been exercised and by whom, focusing on the case of Ukraine from 2014-2023. The concluding chapter presents and discusses the main findings of the book, particularly the paradox of growing role expectations of German leadership in EU foreign policy at the same time as there has been a diffusion of supranationalism in leadership practices by central EU institutional actors that were critical to ensuring a swift and unified response by the EU and its member states to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
My sabbatical was spent as a visiting research fellow at two world leading universities which contributed significantly to the quality of the book. In the autumn of 2021, I spent the Michaelmas term (Oct-Dec) at St Antony’s College, Oxford, where I worked at the European Studies Centre (ESC). My time as a visiting scholar at Oxford enabled me to expand the parts of my book that related to Brexit and the impact on EU foreign policy, given that Oxford has many leading scholars in this field. During this time, I also presented my research at the European Centre’s research seminar which, apart from attracting scholars across the whole university, also included high-ranking diplomats and officials who offered valuable feedback. Given that the ESC is keen to develop closer academic contacts and exchanges with scholars in Scandinavia and the Baltics, I was also involved in facilitating contacts between various academics and funding organizations during my time in Oxford.
The spring semester of 2022 was spent at the Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University. My time as a visiting scholar at Harvard coincided with the outbreak of war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which had a significant impact on my research, both in terms of the seminars I attended and in terms of how the book manuscript developed. I decided quite early on that this major watershed in European politics had to be incorporated in the book, which meant that I decided to include another chapter that focused on crisis leadership and the war in Ukraine. It was very valuable to be on the other side of the Atlantic while working on this chapter and concluding my analysis of leadership and transatlantic relations. During my time at Harvard, I regularly attended the research seminars – both at CES, the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School, where I was also able to discuss and present my own work on how EU-US leadership relations have fluctuated during the last three US Presidencies. During my sabbatical in the United States, I also presented my research at the annual International Studies Association (ISA) conference, which was held in Nashville, Tennessee.
The sabbatical produced three research outputs: two book-chapters in widely-used international textbooks on foreign policy and EU external studies respectively, as well as the research monograph. The book chapter on EU foreign policy is published in one of the key textbooks on foreign policy and read by students all over the world. It includes an analysis of the EU response to the war in Ukraine and is published by Oxford University Press. The other book chapter provides an overview of role theory and leadership studies in the field of EU external action studies and is part of a textbook involving leading European scholars. Below is a fuller elaboration of the contents of my research monograph:
Preliminary title and table of contents.
The Quest for Leadership: European foreign policy in a turbulent world
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. A social role theory of leadership
Chapter 3. Leadership in European foreign policy governance
Chapter 4. Leadership or management? The role of the EU High Representative
Chapter 5. Leadership by EU member states
Chapter 6. Leadership in transatlantic relations
Chapter 7. The war in Ukraine: A European leadership moment?
Chapter 8. Conclusion
The first chapter sets out the main conceptual and empirical themes of the book. It includes a discussion of the highly diverse field of leadership studies and the concept as essentially contested with a clear division between agency versus structurally focused explanations. I argue for an ontological and epistemological position that moves beyond this dichotomy, and define leadership as the activity of an actor that purposely aims to influence and guide a group towards collective goals and outcomes by making use of specific leadership strategies. The empirical puzzle I outline is that whilst the newly reformed EU foreign policy system that emerged from the Lisbon Treaty aims to centralize leadership practices, it has triggered resistance and new informal leadership practices among member states that paradoxically risk undermining the original ambition of the treaty. The second chapter goes on to outline the theoretical framework where I develop a distinct framework of analysis building on sociological role theory. The chapter elaborates a variety of scope conditions for leadership to emerge and makes a distinction between different styles of leadership.
The following four chapters (3-7) have been structured so that each chapter begins with a conceptual puzzle and/or research question which is then systematically investigated empirically. Chapter three serves as a background chapter to map out the dispersed leadership governance structures of the EU and aims to pinpoint the central actors and formal leadership functions in the policy-making processes of EU foreign policy. Chapters four and five are focused on the question how we conceive the principal-agent relationship between EU institutional actors and the member states. In chapter four, I begin a discussion of the various types of roles international executives may take in international organizations, and make a distinction between management and leadership. This distinction is then applied in the comparative analysis of how the role of the EU High Representative has evolved since the Lisbon Treaty, a period in which three different individuals occupied this post (Ashton, Mogherini and Borrell). Chapter five moves the focus to the concept of informal leadership and draws attention to the continued leadership roles that EU member states play in EU foreign policy. The study is partly based on original findings from a leadership survey with European and national foreign policy-makers. It provides insights to how member states perceive the role of big vs. small states and leadership conflicts in EU foreign policy. The following two chapters analyse European leadership in two specific contexts and cases. Chapter six draws on the concept of alter-role casting to argue that how European and American policy-makers conceive of each other is highly constitutive to European leadership conceptions in foreign policy. Based on a strategic narrative analysis of foreign policy speeches covering three US presidencies, the chapter argues that European role conceptions have fluctuated between followership and leadership in transatlantic relations. Chapter Seven examines the concept of crisis leadership and considers how European leadership has been exercised and by whom, focusing on the case of Ukraine from 2014-2023. The concluding chapter presents and discusses the main findings of the book, particularly the paradox of growing role expectations of German leadership in EU foreign policy at the same time as there has been a diffusion of supranationalism in leadership practices by central EU institutional actors that were critical to ensuring a swift and unified response by the EU and its member states to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.