Responses to the ‘Arabellions’: The EU in Comparative Perspective — Introduction

Abstract

This article introduces the themes of this special issue which is devoted to the reactions by external actors including the EU to the events unfolding in the Arab world beginning in December 2010. In particular, we look at the balancing act by external actors between their desire for stability, on the one hand, and their normative principles toward human rights and democracy, on the other. We compare the action (and inaction) of the European Union (EU) with other international and regional players, including the United States, Russia, Turkey and Israel. The contributions assess the response of these actors to the Arabellions events and analyse changes in their approaches to the Arab region. We ask three questions: (1) How have external actors assessed the ‘Arabellions’ and what role did they see for themselves in this context? (2) Which goals and instruments did external actors pursue toward the MENA region? In particular, how did they deal with conflicting goals, such as support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and concerns about security and stability, on the other? (3) How can we explain the varying responses of external actors to the Arabellions?

Key Words:

• Arabellion
• actorness
• Middle East and North Africa
• geostrategic interests
• domestic politics
• collective identity

The Tunisian protests triggered by Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation on 17 December 2010, led to a spiral of revolutions and rebellions across North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf.¹ For a short period of time, there was hope that the peoples were finally empowered to get rid of their autocratic rulers who had prevented political and economic progress in the Arab world for a long period of time. A few years later, these hopes had somehow been shattered. Tunisia is still in the midst of a difficult transition process. Egypt is now ruled by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who was elected following a military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood who governed the country for a short time. Libya has turned into a failing state whereby large parts of the territory are outside the control of the central government and the country suffers from insecurity and instability. The Syrian civil war is still ongoing, but the rebels have lost significant ground to the Assad regime. In Bahrain, the monarchy has reasserted itself.

The ‘Arabellions’² have presented quite a few challenges to external actors. While it took everybody by surprise, particularly Western actors quickly realized that they had to walk a fine line between their principled support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and their quest for security and stability in the region, on the other. Moreover, their experiences in Libya and, to a greater extent, Iraq, have had many Western powers (the US, in particular) question their abilities to adequately adapt to and intervene in a region that is rapidly changing. ‘The ebbing of “western” political and economic influence places great strain on the military and security dimensions of relationships that have for so long underpinned the structure and balance of regional power’ (Held and Ulrichsen 2014).

This special issue examines the balancing act by external actors between their desire for stability, on the one hand, and their normative principles toward human rights and democracy, on the other. In particular, we compare the action (and inaction) of the European Union (EU) with other international and regional players, including the United States, Russia, Turkey and Israel. The contributions assess the response of these actors to the Arabellions events and analyse changes in their approaches to the Arab region.

The changes taking place in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provide an excellent testing ground for the role of external actors who seek to promote democracy, security and stability, ensure access to natural resources or develop strong trade ties. By ‘external’, we mean states and regional organizations, which are not themselves subject to protests and opposition during the Arabellions. We focus on three actors outside the region (the US, EU and Russia) and one regional actor (Israel), with Turkey being a case in between. The five actors differ in their regime type and actorness, which allows us to explore how important these two variables are in accounting for what goals the actors pursue, which instruments they employ and how consistent and coherent their foreign policies are.

The special issue tries to accomplish two tasks. The first task is empirical stocktaking: How have the EU and other international as well as regional players reacted to the Arabellions? In this context, we address two sub-questions:

• How have external actors assessed the Arabellions and what role did they see for themselves in this context?

• Which goals and instruments did external actors pursue toward the MENA region? In particular, how did they deal with conflicting goals, such as support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and concerns about security and stability, on the other?

The results of the empirical analyses are rather straightforward: Only the US and the EU perceived the events in the MENA region as opportunities for democratic change, at least initially, seeing themselves as active shapers or more passive facilitators (see Dandashly 2014; Huber 2014; Noutcheva 2014). Turkey, under the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), viewed the Arabellions as an opportunity to spread its model of democracy and vision for a new regional order. The more events unfolded, however, the more the two Western powers joined with other external actors who had initially prioritized security and stability, including preventive measures, should Islamic extremism sweep over the remaining MENA countries. The contrast between Turkey and Israel is particularly relevant in this context (see articles by Ayata 2014; Magen 2014): While Turkey, under Prime Minister Erdogan, saw itself as a transformative power for the region, Israel — the only stable democracy in the region — tried to insulate itself as a somewhat ‘active by-stander’ from the perceived security risks emanating from the Arabellions.

All external actors ‘struggled to find a consistent response and a long-term strategy to events, which are changing by the day and sometimes by the hour’ since any action will affect them, not only regarding their role in the region, but also domestically (Malmvig and Tassinari 2011, 94). Therefore, Western actors based their actions heavily on what was happening on the ground. In most cases, the EU and US policies have been mainly reactive. This ‘wait-and-see approach’ might have been, if not a brave and visionary policy, at least a prudent option. Both the EU member states and the US ‘eventually managed to get from the new Arab governments — even in the case that they included representatives from Islamist parties — the same basic assurances as to their main regional interests they got from their predecessors’ (Alcaro 2012, 18). Their policies towards MENA countries might have simply looked for assurances that their regional interests would be protected under the rule of these new governments. Neither the EU nor the US ‘seems convinced that existing policies towards North Africa and the Middle East are in need of a radical review, based on a long-term perspective of how the region can reasonably look like in the next years’ (Alcaro 2012, 17).

The second task of the special issue is theoretical: How can we explain the varying responses of external actors to the Arabellions? In this context, we utilize a diverse set of theoretical approaches drawn from the field of foreign policy analysis. The individual contributions look at three explanatory factors as drivers of the external actors’ responses:

1. Geostrategic interests as theorized by realism and its variants;

2. self-understandings of actors including their collective identities as suggested by social constructivist approaches;

3. domestic as well as bureaucratic politics as privileged by liberal approaches.

Once again, the findings are rather clear: In each and every case, geostrategic — both security and economic — considerations did play a role, but not in a deterministic sense. Rather, these geostrategic ‘interests’ have been filtered by collective self-understandings and identities, on the one hand, and by domestic as well as bureaucratic politics, on the other. The two latter factors account, for example, for the variation in responses to the Arabellions by three rather different actors, namely the EU, the US and Russia (Dannreuther 2014; Huber 2014; Noutcheva 2014). Actors’ properties, by contrast, including actorness and regime type, cannot explain their responses. It is largely irrelevant whether the external actor is a state or a regional organization. Nor does it make much of a difference whether external actors are democratic, semi-democratic or authoritarian. We come back to this point in the conclusions.

The rest of the introduction lays out the analytical framework for the special issue. In the next section, we briefly provide a background on the Arabellions. We then discuss the dependent variable of the special issue, namely, the responses by external actors to the events in the MENA region. The third section discusses the three explanatory variables that form the common criteria for comparison among the various articles. Section four highlights the reasoning for our case selection. Finally, we provide an overview of the papers in this special issue.

The Arabellions

For decades, MENA countries have lived under oppressive and highly corrupt regimes that afforded them very little political freedoms and civil rights. In fact, the MENA region has been and continues to be one of the most autocratic regions in the world, in which Israel remains the only stable democracy. The lack of democracy in the region did not prevent the EU, the US and other Western powers from cooperating with its regimes — as long as stability and security were guaranteed. Yet, the security and stability that had prevailed on the EU’s southern borders for decades could not withstand the unexpected protests that broke out in Tunisia and spilled over into Egypt, Libya, Syria and other Arab countries. While each country has had a unique experience, rising unemployment rates (especially youth unemployment),³ high inflation, low growth, along with political oppression, resulted in a widespread call for change, particularly when the repercussions of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis worsened the economic situation.

The political developments that have unfolded since the Arabellions have been mixed, ranging from reassertion of authoritarian rule (Bahrain) to incremental democratic transition (Tunisia). Since January 2011, Tunisia has engaged in a steady process of institution building, including the first open and fair elections of a Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011 and, most importantly, the first steps towards constitution building. However, the political parties that participated in the revolution have had difficulties to form a stable government. The current coalition, which had formed after the fall of Hamadi Jebali’s government in February 2013, has been facing repeated protests sparked by the assassination of one of the opposition leaders, Mohammad Brahimi, on 25 July 2013.

In Egypt, the uprising was bloody and more deadly when compared to the similar experience of Tunisia. After several failed attempts of reforms to buy the silence of the people, President Mohammad Husni Moubarak had to step down and relinquish power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The army assured the protesters that free and fair elections would take place and that all regional and international obligations and agreements would be respected — a step that was welcomed by Israeli leaders. Elections took place thereafter and resulted in Islamists winning not only the majority of the parliament’s seats, but also the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi winning the presidential election. After a year of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule, millions of protesters returned to the streets calling for the removal of President Morsi. The new protests led to chaos and high numbers of casualties. The new violence caused the army to interfere; under the leadership of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a military coup toppled Morsi from power. The military suspended the Egyptian constitution and arrested many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi himself. Following these events, a new constitution was written, followed by new presidential elections that resulted in a victory for el-Sisi.

Bahrain’s history of popular opposition to the rule of the al-Khalifa royal family dates back to the 1920s due to ‘unequal and selective development’ (Ulrichsen 2012, 28) — on sectarian basis between Sunnis and Shiites. The events in Tunisia and Egypt triggered protests in Bahrain in February 2011. Although the protestors were mainly youth from Sunnis and Shiites, shortly afterwards, the Shiite parties took over and were supported by secular leftist and liberal groups (al-Jazeera 30 August 2011). The protests escalated, quickly demanding the King to step down (Ulrichsen 2012, 29). In response to the opposition, the regime sponsored counter-demonstrations. The fact that the majority of the population is Shiite Muslims (about 70 per cent) ruled by a Sunni minority made it easy to blame Iran for the escalation of the violent protests. In March 2011, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — under Saudi leadership — sent forces through its Peninsula Shield Force to help the Bahraini regime maintain its grip over the situation. With the help of this force, the Bahraini military detained thousands of the protesters and oppressed the opposition.

Prior to the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, Libya experienced the most violent rebellion, highlighted by the toppling and killing of Mouammar al-Gaddafi. In a country lacking basic infrastructure and dominated by tribal structures, a civil war broke out between Gaddafi’s regime and his allies and the opposition in that rich oil and gas country with a population of around 6.4 million. Concerned for its oil and gas deposits, Western countries rushed to interfere and ultimately helped bringing down Gaddafi’s regime. The United Nations Security Council adopted several resolutions including the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone and authorized the use of force to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s military attacks. Despite the fact that Gaddafi’s regime fell after a bloody civil war, the divisions among the various tribal groups continue to block the country’s progress toward democracy. Libya is currently a failing state which suffers from a severe lack of domestic security and stability.

The Western involvement in Libya and its eagerness to end Gaddafi’s rule did not spillover to Syria. Rather, the experiences of Libya and the aftermath of the fall of the Gaddafi regime contributed to the decision not to intervene militarily in Syria. Shortly after the uprising in Libya, peaceful protests that called for the abdication of the Assad regime began in Syria. After these demonstrations were violently oppressed by the regime, a civil war broke out. More than 100,000 people have been killed thus far in Syria, making it the bloodiest instance of the Arabellions. In addition, the Assad regime used chemical weapons against the uprising triggering an international response which led to the chemical disarmament of Syria and its accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention. However, while Western powers asked Assad to step down, the UN Security Council has been blocked from implementing any meaningful action by vetoes of Russia and China (see article by Dannreuther 2014). The Syrian opposition has been split early on between various factions with Islamic fundamentalists — including local Al Qaeda forces — increasingly taking control. Moreover, the Syrian opposition has not been able to topple Assad and has been losing ground to Assad’s army supported by Hizbullah, Iran and other groups. The Syrian crisis created more pressure on the Syrian neighbours (mainly Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey) and the EU. In 2013 alone, a quarter of the total detected illegal refugees came from Syria (25,500; according to Frontex 2014, 7).

This brief discussion of the Arabellions demonstrates that the road to reform and democracy is long and bumpy, to say the very least. Syria is still in the midst of a war. Libya is struggling to maintain security and stability in a failing state. While protests in Bahrain have been violently suppressed, Egypt is currently under military rule. Tunisia appears to be the only country in the region with any meaningful chance at democratic consolidation. Irrespective of their final outcomes, the Arab uprisings have significantly changed the situation on the ground for external actors and their foreign policies towards the MENA region.

The Dependent Variable: Responses to the Arabellions by External Actors

The various contributions to the special issue allow us to assess and compare the responses of various actors to the unfolding events of the Arabellions. Do the EU’s external actions substantially differ from those of other international organizations and states with a stake in the region? Do we see similarities in the goals and the instruments used to pursue them? The comparison of the EU with the US, Israel, Turkey and Russia focuses on three key issues of the dependent variable: (1) assessments of the Arabellions and self-perception; (2) objectives and goals; (3) instruments and tools:

Assessments of the Arabellions and Self-perception

How have the EU and the other external actors perceived events in the MENA region? Have they seen them in terms of opportunities or rather as risks? What role have the EU and other external actors seen for themselves in relation to the Arabellions?

With regard to the assessment, external actors can either see the Arabellions as an opportunity for promoting their own model of ‘good governance’ or extending their sphere of influence in the region. Alternatively, external actors may fear the risks of regime change resulting in political instability, civil war and migration flows and threatening access to natural resources or the security of borders. Irrespective of their dominant perception, external actors can aspire to be active shapers trying to influence the developments in the region according to their own interests. Or they are passive bystanders being reluctant to rock the boat and trigger events that are beyond their control.

Goals

Does the EU’s focus differ from the priorities of other international actors? Do we find a division of labour between (or rather a competition among) the various actors? And how did the goals change over time?

Most external actors pursue security or economic goals in the MENA region. The EU and the US explicitly seek to promote the respect for human rights, the rule of law and democracy, which they see as long-term strategies to ensure peace and prosperity. Yet, not all good things go together (Grimm and Leininger 2012). Promoting democratic change requires a transition of power that entails political uncertainty about the outcome and often involves violent conflict. This ‘democratization-stability dilemma’ (Gillespie and Youngs 2002; Jünemann 2003, 7), which is particularly virulent when states are fragile, requires external actors to prioritize their goals e.g. by putting security first. The goals external actors pursue may not only conflict with each other; they can also clash with the goals of other external actors seeking to secure their influence in the region. At the same time, they may also reinforce or complement each other by seeking to strengthen different parts of democracy or to foster socio-economic development rather than only providing military security.

Instruments

Does the EU prioritize different instruments than other international actors in pursuing its goals? Is the EU relying on trade and aid while others engage more heavily in diplomacy and political dialogue? What role does military action play?

We distinguish five different instruments external actors can deploy to realize their goals (cf. Magen and Morlino 2008; Magen, Risse, and McFaul 2009). Next to the use of military force (1), they may invoke positive conditionality rewarding progress (2) or impose sanctions punishing the lack thereof (3). Persuasion through diplomacy (4) aims at convincing the incumbent regimes to engage in changes external actors like to see. Financial and technical assistance (5) seeks to build or strengthen the capacities of MENA countries to introduce changes that are in line with the goals external actors pursue. While the various instruments are often combined, they are not equally available to all external actors. Moreover, external actors may differ in their inclination to make use of certain instruments, particularly when it comes to the deployment of military force. The contributions to this special issue analyse the assessments, self-perceptions, goals and instruments of the various external actors, explore the degree to which they changed over time as the events proceeded and discuss how far the explanatory factors, which we introduce in the next section, account for their findings. The concluding chapter by the editors provides a comparative assessment.

Explanations: Geostrategic Interests, Collective Identities, and Domestic Politics

The special issue explores three sets of explanatory factors that account for the various responses by external actors to the Arabellions. These explanations are derived from standard theories of international relations and from foreign policy analysis (see e.g. Carlsnaes 2013). We concentrate on geostrategic (economic and security) interests; on self-understandings and collective identity; and on domestic as well as bureaucratic politics.

Geostrategic Interests

The theoretical approach of relevance here is realism and its varieties (see e.g. Mearsheimer 2001; Morgenthau 1948; Waltz 1979). While not a theory of foreign policy per se, realism does suggest that an actor’s foreign policy is primarily driven by the constraints and opportunities of its external environment. At the same time, the capacity to act is first and foremost a function of an actor’s power measured in terms of mostly military and economic capabilities. For realism, a country’s primary goal in the international environment is its survival as a result of which security interests take precedence over any other foreign policy goal a country might have. Economic interests come second, such as access to resources (oil!), but realism is rather sceptical with regard to the promotion of economic interdependence via trade and investments. A realist foreign policy, therefore, should prioritize a country’s autonomy from outside interference or — if this is not an option because of a weak power status — should maximize influence over outcomes and events in its external environment (see Baumann, Rittberger, and Wagner 2001).

If we apply these considerations to the case of our external actors and their responses to the events in the Middle East, a number of pitfalls need to be avoided. First and strictly speaking, realism does not apply to the foreign policy of international or regional organizations such as the EU, since realism does not take IOs seriously as actors in their own right. As we argue below, however, our case selection does include the EU as one regional organization and we ascribe at least some ‘actorness’ to it which is not simply derivative of the interests of their member states. Nevertheless, we have to relax some realist core assumptions at this point.

Second and more important, one should not read off a realist foreign policy from the proclaimed goals of the various governments or the regional organization. In our cases, for example, nearly all external actors claimed at one point or another that events in the MENA region affected their security interests. From a realist standpoint, these proclaimed goals are irrelevant for the analysis which must take ‘objective’ security interests into account. To give a few examples: In the case of Israel, a realist would probably agree that the Arabellions immediately affect the survival interests of the state given the hostility of the Arab world toward Israel.⁴ It is much harder to argue for the same effect of the Arabellions on the survival interests of the United States (or of Russia, for that matter), while Turkey and the EU are cases in between. For the latter, instability in the Arab world indeed affects some security interests with regard to transnational terrorism, on the one hand, and refugee flows, on the other.

In sum, ‘geostrategic interests’, in a realist sense, refers to ‘objective’ threats and opportunities emanating from an actor’s external environment defined by the distribution of power. It does not include issues such as democracy or human rights which are irrelevant from a realist perspective. As to perceived security interests, they have to be weighed against the ‘objective’ security environment in which an actor — be it a state or a regional organization — finds itself.

Collective Identity and Self-understandings

Social constructivism is not a theory of international relations or foreign policy. It is an ontology and — as at least some proponents would argue — an epistemology that provides a particular lens on world politics, including foreign policy (see e.g. Adler 2013; Klotz and Lynch 2007; Wendt 1999). For example, there are no ‘objective’ interests from this perspective, but such ‘national interests’ are social constructions which help actors to be able to act in the world. From a social constructivist viewpoint, the self-understandings of actors — their collective identity — assume centre stage in any analysis of foreign policy. While collective identities are unlikely to affect behaviour directly, they should define the realm of the ‘possible’ in foreign policy, of that what is deemed appropriate behaviour with regard to the outside world (March and Olsen 1998). In other words, self-understandings and collective identities influence how actors define and perceive their interests and how they prioritize their goals. Who we are affects what we want. With regard to foreign policy, actors — states and regional organizations — are likely to develop their own foreign policy identity which then defines the realm of appropriate goals and instruments to enact this identity.

Applied to the responses by external actors to the Arabellions, such a social constructivist approach would first describe the foreign policy identity of the actor in question and then analyse how this identity fits into the Middle Eastern context. For example, the US has developed a foreign policy identity of both a liberal democracy and of a (military) superpower. It would, therefore, view the events in the MENA region as an opportunity for democracy promotion. At the same time and as a superpower, it should consider the whole range of foreign policy instruments — including military intervention — as appropriate tools to further its interests as defined by the US identity. In contrast, while the EU shares the American identity of a democratic power, its foreign policy identity privileges ‘civilian’ as well as ‘soft’ power and is rather reluctant to employ military means (see the debate about the EU’s identity as a ‘civilian’ or ‘normative’ power e.g. Börzel and Risse 2009; Manners 2002; Sjursen 2006; on European identity in general see Risse 2010).

To conclude, a social constructivist approach privileges the self-understandings of actors as defining what they see in their interests, how they prioritize their interests and what instruments and tools they use to pursue these interests. There is nothing given about ‘security interests’, but they emerge out of discursive interactions and are constantly constructed and re-constructed, as the Copenhagen school of securitization reminds us (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde 1998; Waever 1995, 1996).

Domestic and Bureaucratic Politics

Liberal approaches to international relations and to foreign policy privilege what is going on inside the state (or the regional organization, for that matter). Foreign policy behaviour is explained by domestic politics — the interplay of political and societal actors such as parties, interest groups or civil society organizations, as well as by domestic political institutions and the constraints they put on actors (see e.g. Czempiel 1981; Freund and Rittberger 2001; Moravcsik 1997; Putnam 1988). The latter includes regime type and has led to the ‘democratic peace’ argument according to which democratic states are peaceful and more cooperative when dealing with each other (Risse-Kappen 1995; Russett and Oneal 2001). A specific liberal approach to foreign policy focuses on bureaucratic politics and the inter-organizational bargaining struggles among the various agencies of state and other executives e.g. between foreign affairs departments and defence ministries (Allison 1972; Allison and Halperin 1989).

Applied to our actors and the Middle East, liberal approaches to foreign policy would explain the responses to the Arabellions in terms of the configuration of forces inside the state or the regional organization. Are there special — e.g. economic or security — interest groups holding intensive preferences with regard to the Middle East? How are the political forces inside a country or a regional organization aligned; and which foreign policy goals do they pursue? How do the bureaucratic alignments inside the government or the executive of the regional organization look like with regard to the Middle East? For example, bureaucratic infighting in the US administration between the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department is legendary when it comes to the Middle East (see e.g. Woodward 2002 on the Iraq case). With regard to the EU, one might look at rivalries and conflicts between the various directorates of the Commission, the European External Action Service (EEAS), as well as at the interaction between the Commission, the EEAS and the Council bureaucracy(see article by Noutcheva). Moreover, one must also look at the configuration of forces within and between various member states. To explain Turkish behaviour, a liberal approach would focus on the Justice and Development Party under Prime Minister Erdogan and its attempt to establish moderate Islamism inside and outside the country (see article by Ayata 2014). In the case of Russia, it would emphasize the then prime minister and now President Putin’s efforts to maintain and expand his domestic power base (see article by Dannreuther 2014).

To conclude, a liberal approach focuses on domestic politics and domestic institutions to explain the actors’ responses to the Arabellions. This might include the self-understandings and collective identities of domestic actors. To this extent, liberal foreign policy analysis can accommodate social constructivism as long as the state (or the regional organization) is not treated as a unitary actor. Realism and liberalism, however, are mutually exclusive, since one cannot explain foreign policy simultaneously through ‘objective’ security interests and through domestic politics, despite various attempts to do so (see Legro and Moravcsik 1999, on this point). But this consideration does not exclude that external events are refracted and filtered through a state’s or regional organization’s domestic environment. Yet, by privileging the domestic over the international, we firmly remain in the realm of domestic politics and liberal foreign policy analysis.

Case Selection

At first glance, this special issue might appear to compare apples and oranges. The EU is a regional organization, while the US, Russia, Turkey and Israel are sovereign states. How can we compare these rather different players with regard to the same dependent variables and explanatory factors? We argue that what these entities have in common is their principal ‘actorness’ defined as the ability and willingness to act. While actorness has rarely been contested with regard to the foreign policy of sovereign states, a long debate has been looming concerning the actorness of regional organizations, particularly the EU (see e.g. Bretherton and Vogler 2006; Conceição-Heldt and Meunier 2014; Hettne, Söderbaum and Stålgren 2008; Jupille and Caporaso 1998). According to Jupille and Caporaso, four criteria have to be met in this context: authority, recognition, autonomy and cohesion (Jupille and Caporaso 1998). We agree with the first three, but not with the fourth, cohesion, which we replace with capability.

Authority refers to the legal competence of an actor to pursue a foreign policy vis-á-vis the MENA region. This authority is not questionable with regard to the four states analysed in this special issue, but it also applies to the EU. Since the Treaty of Maastricht, the EU has acquired comprehensive legal competences to develop and implement its own foreign policies.

Recognition refers to the acceptance of this authority by other actors. Once again, this recognition is given with regard to the states and the EU considered in this special issue. Note that ‘recognition’ should not be confused with legitimacy: US foreign policy toward the Middle East is considered illegitimate by a whole variety of other actors, even though the US has the authority to act.

Autonomy concerns the distinctiveness and independence of an actor vis-à-vis other actors. Once again, this criterion is usually met by sovereign states which do not face interferences with their ‘Westphalian’ sovereignty regarding foreign policy (on this term, see Krasner 1999). However, the autonomy requirement is harder to meet by regional organizations whose actions are firmly controlled by their principals, the member states. Yet, even in a principal–agent relationship, the agent — the regional organization in this case — usually has some slack i.e. some degree of autonomy. This certainly applies to the EU.

In contrast to Jupille and Caporaso, we do not consider cohesion as necessary ingredient for actorness. Whether an actor pursues an inconsistent and incoherent foreign policy is an empirical question, not a definitional criterion. As we argue in the conclusions, the US pursued one of the most incoherent foreign policies with regard to the Arabellions as compared to all other actors — including the EU — considered in this special issue.

Instead, we would like to add one criterion to the Jupille/Caporaso list, namely capabilities. An actor, which does not have the resources at its disposal to put goals into action, has little actorness in our view. Actorness requires that actors have significant resources and the institutions necessary to deploy them. These capabilities are, hence, directly linked to the instruments of external actors we defined in the previous section and can be divided into three broad categories: political (persuasion through diplomacy), economic (positive conditionality/sanctions) or military means. They include resources (financial and otherwise), knowledge and organizational capacities (March and Olsen 1995, 92–95). Among the actors considered in this special issue, the capabilities vary considerably. But each and every state analysed here has at least some at its disposal to pursue its goals. So does the EU.

In sum, all actors examined in this special have actorness. As we will argue in the conclusion, the distinction between states and the EU, which is more than an international organization and less than a state (Wallace 1983) is not particularly useful when it comes to analysing the responses to the Arabellions. The EU’s foreign policy, for example, has been a lot more cohesive and consistent than US or Turkish foreign policy.

While all actors considered in this special issues share actorness, they have been selected according to their relevance for the MENA region and with regard to the strategic importance of the Middle East to their foreign policy. This is self-evident with regard to Israel as part of the MENA region. It is also obvious concerning the EU and Turkey bordering the region. The US is a global power which has considered the Middle East of utmost significance to its strategic interests for a long time. Finally, Russia might not have as strong economic and security interests in the MENA region as the other players, but has emerged as a major counter-weight to Western attempts to influence outcomes (see article by Dannreuther 2014).

Finally, our five actors differ with regard to their regime type. The US and the EU are democratic regimes that have inscribed the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law into their foreign policies (Magen, Risse, and McFaul 2009). Israel is the only stable democracy in the region which refrains, however, from projecting its internal values onto its neighbours (see Magen 2014). Turkey has lost some of its democratic credentials in recent years because of Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian government style encroaching on the political freedoms of the domestic opposition (see Ayata 2014). At the same time, the AKP likes to portray Turkey as a model of a moderate, democratically embedded political Islam. Putin’s Russia, finally is a semi-authoritarian state, which seeks to promote a non-Western form of ‘sovereign democracy’ based on a strong, unified nation (see Dannreuther 2014). This variation allows us to explore whether democracies have responded differently to the Arabellions than less or non-democratic regimes. While the contributions to this special issue do not focus on domestic impact, we will be able to draw some preliminary conclusions as regards the debate about whether non-democracies spoil the efforts of democracies at promoting democratic change.

Of course, there are actors which are not included in this special issue, but could have been, since they meet the criteria laid out above. Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind as well as the Gulf Cooperation Council and the League of Arab States. While they are discussed and mentioned in various articles (see e.g. articles by Dandashly 2014; Huber 2014; Magen 2014), they are not part of the special issue for pragmatic reasons.

Overview of the Articles

The first set of articles deal with the responses of several regional organizations to the Arabellions. The special issue begins with two articles on the European Union.

Gergana Noutcheva analyses the goals and instruments of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) before and after the Arabellions. She tries to understand ‘why there has been little substantive change in the EU’s approach to its Southern neighbourhood’ despite the early enthusiasm regarding democracy promotion. In order to understand how and why the EU has responded to changes in its neighbourhood, Noutcheva focuses on the ‘ENP’s institutional set-up and the power relationships that exist between the different layers of governance involved in setting ENP goals and implementing policy’. The lack of substantive change in the ENP is mainly explained by bureaucratic and domestic politics: ‘the freedom of action of EU institutions, and the (dis)unity of the EU member states in the main ENP policy areas’.

While Noutcheva focuses on the EU institutions, Assem Dandashly compares the EU’s response on the ground to the Arabellions. With the beginning of the events, the EU had high hopes that the Arabellions would finally open the door for democratization processes after decades of stagnation. However, this early enthusiasm quickly withered away. The EU’s response to unfolding events has been neither coherent nor consistent. Focusing on Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Dandashly argues that EU goals remain security and stability driven, while the instruments used vary across time and targeted countries depending on their degree of domestic stability and security.

Daniela Huber analyses how the United States reacted to the Arabellions and how we can understand its ‘dual role as an anchor of security and modest advocate of democracy’. Similar to the EU, the US had initially assessed the Arabellions as an opportunity for democratic transition. However, this view quickly started to give way to a perception of the unfolding events as risks rather than opportunities. With respect to goals and instruments, the US did not pursue a consistent approach. Rather, it ‘switched from a default to an ad hoc modus in its foreign policy in the region’, which is best explained by bureaucratic infighting, on the one hand, and growing domestic opposition against an interventionist foreign policy, on the other.

Roland Dannreuther’s article explores Russia’s reaction to the Arabellions. It seeks to detect the main ‘factors explaining the evolution of Russia’s stance towards’ the MENA region and the conflicts in Libya and Syria. Similar to the EU and the US, Russia perceived the Arabellions as major transformations. However, the Putin government did not share their view of the events as an anchor for democratic changes. ‘While initially welcoming the popular demands for political reform’ in Tunisia and Egypt, ‘the Russian reaction rapidly became more critical’ as developments in the region resulted in Western military intervention, on the one hand, and the spread of Islamist extremism, on the other. Trying to understand the role played by Russia in several Arabellion countries, Dannreuther argues that geopolitical factors are important to understand Russia’s general stance, but falls short to explain the Russian reaction on its own. Therefore, Dannreuther emphasizes the importance of ideational factors in accounting for Russian foreign policy as a counter-position to what it sees as the Western imposition of liberal democratic systems. Moreover, the domestic situation in Russia, characterized by political unrest and opposition to the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections, also played an important role in shaping the Russian reaction to the Arabellions.

Bilgin Ayata examines the Turkish reactions to the ‘Arabellions’. Turkey’s rise as an emergent regional power received a new dimension after the outbreak of protests in the Arab region in 2011. Turkey viewed the events as a window of opportunity to expand its influence in the region and promote its model of a democratically embedded, moderate Islam for emerging Muslim democracies. Turkey implemented a number of soft instruments to support regime change. However, what appeared as a golden opportunity for Turkey’s aspirations to increase its regional power started to turn into a curse when the effects of the Arab regime changes and upheavals hit home and the developments in Egypt and Syria went against Turkey’s interests in security and stability. Ayata argues that ideational and domestic explanations fare best in understanding Turkey’s differential foreign policy to the region.

In his contribution, Amichai Magen demonstrates that in contrast to the EU and the US, Israel as the only stable democracy in the region did not interpret the advent of the Arabellions as the possible beginning of a wave of democratization, or an opportunity for pro-democratic engagement. The dominant Israeli reading of the Arabellions was overwhelmingly security-oriented, risk-averse and generally negative. Magen assesses the Israeli active/passive reaction according to the various stages that it went through. He shows that Israel was narrowly focused on defending its national security, preserving existing diplomatic and security assets and insulating its population and economy from the tumult around it. Magen argues that realist thinking is useful in understanding Israeli foreign policy. At the same time, the choices made by Israeli policy-makers in exercising ‘strategic silence’ and abstaining from portraying itself as a democratic role model and providing democratic aid to the Arabellion countries, reflected the Israeli self-image regarding the ideational differences with the Arab countries, lack of trust and the awareness of its inability to promote positive change.

The conclusions by the editors summarize the main findings of the contributions. We tease out the implications of our findings for the discussion on the EU’s actorness and the theoretical debate on whether comparing the EU to other international actors amounts to comparing apples and oranges. We then concentrate on explaining the similarities and differences in the responses by the various external actors to the Arabellions. Finally, the conclusion highlights the lessons learnt and their long-term implications. A comparative perspective reveals that the EU does not suffer from problems of actorness any more than (democratic) states. Nor is it unique in prioritizing stability and security over democracy. While the EU is certainly not an effective normative or transformative power, strengthening its capability to speak with one voice will not necessarily do the trick.

Notes

1. This special issue was designed and made possible in the context of the Research College (Kolleg-Forschergruppe) ‘Transformative Power of Europe?’ at the Freie Universität Berlin, funded by the DFG German Research Foundation (Grant No. BO 1831/7-1/2) and codirected by Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse. We thank the DFG for its generous support over the years. Draft papers were discussed at two workshops, held in Berlin on 8–9 June 2012 and 25–26 October 2013. We thank all the participants for their lively contributions and criticisms, in particular, Federica Bicchi, Sally Khalifa Isaac and Vera van Hüllen. We are also very grateful for the anonymous reviews of the special issue and for the continuous support by the editors of the Journal of European Integration.

2. There are various terms used in the literature for what happened in the Arab world beginning in 2011. Terms used are ‘Arab spring’, ‘Arab revolutions’, ‘Arabellion’ and others. Each of these terms is essentially contested. As a result, we use ‘Arabellion’, which we consider the least problematic, since ‘rebellion’ covers a very wide range of social protest activities.

3. Youth unemployment in the MENA region is among the highest in the world accounting for 23.2 per cent while the world average is only 13.9 per cent (see International Labour Organization 2012).

4. We ignore for the moment the varied causes of the conflict between Israel and the Arab world.