EU normative performance: a critical theory perspective on the EU’s response to the massacre in Andijon, Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a new analytical framework - EU Normative Performance - to examine the European Union’s (EU) policy towards autocratic regimes in its wider Eastern neighbourhood. Drawing on critical theory and the writings of Jürgen Habermas, EU Normative Performance does not define measures of a (cost-) efficient conduct of foreign policy, but develops benchmarks of an ideal-type emancipatory policy constrained by normative principles (Normative Performance as output) and derived from undistorted argumentative reasoning (Normative Performance as a process). The case study assesses the EU’s response to the Andijon massacre in Uzbekistan in May 2005.

KEYWORDS:

• EU performance
• EU neighbourhood policy
• EU normative power
• EU foreign policy
• EU arms embargo
• Uzbekistan

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the guest editors of this special issue and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments that contributed to improving the final version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Giselle Bosse is Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the MSc European Studies at Maastricht University (NL), Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges and Research Associate at the Martens Centre for European Studies (Brussels). Her research focuses on the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) and policy towards autocratic regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She is currently the principal investigator of a VENI research project funded by Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) on “Explaining Europe’s failure to deal with autocratic regimes’ (Ref. 451-12-015). Giselle Bosse has published her research inter alia in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Geopolitics, Europe-Asia Studies and Cooperation and Conflict and frequently presents her work at leading think tanks in Europe.

Notes

1 The EU’s trade in arms and arms control, in general, has received little scholarly attention. Notable exceptions include Bauer (2003), Holm (2006), Bromley (2007), Bromley and Brzoska (2008), and Erickson (2013).

2 The Theory of Communicative Action and Habermas’ works on discourse ethics (Habermas 1987, 1988, 1993) are based on the assumption that all social actors have to justify their positions, decisions and actions in a process of argumentation with others. It is a collective argumentation process through which norms and values are defined and it is also a collective argumentation process, which determines what (and if) norms or values should guide a particular course of action (Habermas 1993, 52–53).

3 The Copenhagen criteria of 1993 are conditions elaborated by the EU that define when a country is eligible to join the EU. These include, inter alia, that a country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, and the existence of a functioning market economy (European Council 1993, 12–16).

4 As regards economic security gains, Habermas implicitly distinguishes between gains for states that thereby ensure or maximise “the security of their citizens” (Habermas 2006, 118) and profits, which are generated by the global market but which are no longer distributed “back” to the citizens. When assessing the extent to which arms exports to a country (and restrictions thereof) yield economic and security gains for the EU or a member state, a distinction should thus be made between (a) gains for the majority of citizens of the EU or a member state (public gains) and (b) gains/ profits of multinational corporations (private gains).

5 According to Habermas, “only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse” (Habermas 1990, 66). The inclusion of all does, however, pose practical problems to a multi-level polity like the EU, which only partially meets the conditions of a state-like democracy and whose foreign policy operates in the absence of global democratic institutions capable of transmitting the will of “all affected”. To specify a more realistic boundary of the inclusion criterion, I draw on Buchanan and Keohane (2006), who highlight the critical role of transnational civil society and (national) legislatures for the accountability and legitimacy of global governance institutions. The inclusion criterion is therefore limited to EU member state governments and the European Parliament (the “democratic channels of accountability”) and international NGOs such as Transparency International or Human Rights Watch (the “transnational civil society channel of accountability”) (c.f. Buchanan and Keohoane 2006, 415–416; 432–433).

6 Interview by the author with an EU Official, Brussels, September 2008.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) under VENI Research Grant Ref. 451-12-015.