The European Union's role in the G8: a principal–agent perspective

Abstract

This article examines the role of the European Union (EU) in the Group of Eight (G8) framework. We suggest that the EU in the G8 constitutes an unusual form of delegation because the principal–agent (PA) relationship is characterized by considerable degrees of informality and ambiguity. The main argument advanced in this article is that the European Commission, the agent, despite being structurally disadvantaged at the outset, managed to emancipate itself within the G8 over time. This process of agent emancipation has been reinforced, above all, by the flexibility and informality of the G8, the evolving European integration process, and the growing Commission capabilities, standing and entrepreneurship. Although the Commission has managed to move considerably beyond the original PA design intended by the principals, member states' incentives to rely on the Commission also increased over time. We argue that the Commission itself was able to manipulate these incentives, which is most evident in the sub-case of the Commission's successful quest for attaining the Western aid co-ordination mandate for Central and Eastern Europe.

Keywords:

• EU foreign policy
• European Commission
• European Union
• delegation
• G8
• principal–agent

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to thank Athanasios Lakrintis and Caroline Leek for their competent research assistance. We are also grateful to the participants of the workshop ‘The EU's foreign economic policies: a principal-agent perspective’ in Bern, 20–21 November, the editors and two anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

Even though the EC/EU is also represented by the Council Presidency, this article concentrates on the Commission as an agent, not least because the role of the Council Presidency in the G8 is marginal (cf. Huigens and Niemann 2009).

For an overview of research on EU foreign (economic) policy that is based on the PA framework, see Dür and Elsig (elsewhere in this issue).

The term ‘Western (Economic) Summit’ has been reserved for the 1975–1977 period. For the 1978–1997 time-span, we use ‘G7’. For the post-1998 period we refer to it has the ‘G8’. ‘G8’ and ‘Summit’ are also used when we refer to the grouping more generally.

As noted in the literature, smaller or less powerful states (tend to) favour (substantial) delegation as a means to constrain the more powerful states and because they cannot really influence international outcomes very much themselves (cf. Hawkins et al. 2006).

The ‘Library Group’ referred to informal sessions between American, British, French and German finance ministers that met (for the first time) in the White House Library in 1973 (Bayne 1992).

On diverging principal preferences in PA analysis see, for example, Nielson and Tierney (2003) and Hawkins et al. (2006). Generally, it has been assumed that the larger the preference heterogeneity among principals, the less likely principals will be to delegate. In this case, delegation (still) came about given the fact that the smaller member states had no substantial other options, and the European G7 members faced substantial pressure by the non-participating member states and the Community institutions to agree to at least some degree of Community representation.

A list of interviews – including interviewees' affiliations and functions/positions as well as information concerning the place and date of interviews – can be found at the end of this article.

This is not to be confused with the term ‘proximate principals’ that act in a double role as both principal(s) and agent(s). Cf. Nielson and Tierney (2003) and Elsig (forthcoming, 2011).

Contrary to much of the literature that concentrates on the acts of delegation and highlights member state principals' ability to control agents (Moravcsik 1998; Tsebelis and Garrett 2001), works on incomplete contracts emphasize that after the initial decisions on the institutional choice of delegation important ex post deliberations and negotiations may take place over how (institutional) ambiguities should be dealt with (cf. Farrell and Héritier 2007: 227ff).

Effective Commission participation and proactivity has been confirmed by performance studies conducted by the G8 Research Group. The Commissiońs performance results not only suggest output capacity that is comparable to that of the ‘real’ G8 members, the numbers also suggest that this performance is not correlated to that of the other EU member states (G8 Research Group 2010; also see Huigens and Niemann 2009).

When preferences are defined in terms of outcomes, our notion of ‘preferences’ would more aptly be referred to as ‘strategies’. On the definition of ‘preferences’ (and ‘strategies’), see Frieden (1999).

The subsequent draws on Niemann (1998, 2006: ch. 2).