EU External Action, Intention and Explanation

ABSTRACT

“Unintended consequences” is an umbrella concept. It comprises phenomena that differ in crucial respects and consequently, without refinement, it remains a rather blunt instrument for policy analysis. The contributions in this volume, however, show that disentangling unintended consequences by making clear distinctions between various types, makes the concept much more useful for policy analysis. Assessing the impact of EU foreign policies as studied in this volume, we show that “bonuses”, “windfalls”, “accidents”, and “trade-offs” – all unintended – are very different when it comes to the explanation of policy outcomes, or to allocating responsibility for them.

KEYWORDS:

• EU External Action
• foreign policy
• unintended consequences

Notes

¹ When the reference is without a date, it is to an article contained in this Special Issue.

² Merton’s students prolonged and expanded this research agenda and founded a school of critical bureaucracy studies (Blau 1955; Gouldner 1954; Selznick 1953).

³ We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this further refinement and the various names for these categories.

⁴ Hirshman (1991) argues that the expected and intended effect tends to blind actors to possible negative side effects, and that this is the main reason why unintended consequences occur.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank de Zwart

Frank de Zwart is Assistant Professor at Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.

Karolina Pomorska

Karolina Pomorska is Jean Monnet Chair and Assistant Professor in International Relations at Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Karolka55