Market power Europe: exploring a dynamic conceptual framework

ABSTRACT

The conceptualization of the European Union (EU) as market power Europe reflects an understanding that the EU most consequentially affects the international system by externalizing its internal market-related policies and regulatory measures. While considerable evidence exists to support such an exercise of power, further elaboration of the conceptualization reveals a number of ways in which it may contribute to the EU-as–a-power debates. This contribution undertakes a crucial stock-taking exercise for employing market power Europe as a dynamic conceptual framework for understanding and researching the EU as a power. The findings suggest that the conceptualization may improve analytical clarity and advance our empirical and theoretical understanding of the EU's external relations across various policy areas. These insights on the dynamic nature of the conceptualization as an analytical tool reveal important considerations for future scholarly work on the EU as a global regulator and beyond.

KEY WORDS:

• European Union
• externalization
• external relations
• power
• regulation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For useful comments, I would like to thank participants at the workshop on ‘Regulatory power Europe? Assessing the EU's efforts to shape global rules’, sponsored by the Jean Monnet Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), 18–19 April 2014. This work also benefitted from a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy (2013–14), particularly discussions with Ulrich Krotz and William Phelan. Special thanks to Alasdair Young for his encouragement and critical comments, as well as two anonymous reviewers for particularly useful comments.

Notes

1 This understanding is also reflected in external perceptions of the EU (Chaban and Holland 2008; Larsen 2014; Lucarelli and Fioramonti 2009). Insofar as external perceptions matter for shaping an actor's identity, such findings are important for making claims about the appropriateness of how to conceptualize the EU as a power.

2 For more recent treatments of civilian power, see Orbie (2008), Smith (2005) and Telò (2005).

3 For a similar characterization of these contributions as ‘debates’, see Neimann and Bretherton (2013: 263).

4 For a significant research effort that draws from other literatures to examine the role of the EU as a promoter and recipient of ideas, see Börzel and Risse's ‘Transformative power Europe' project at http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/en/v/transformeurope/ (accessed 31 March 2015).

5 There are, however, efforts to link individual conceptualizations to explanatory theory. See, for example, Manners's (2013: 304) claim that the normative power approach ‘makes it possible to explain, understand and judge the EU in global politics'.

6 In addition, for a discussion of EU relational and structural power, see Keukeleire and Delreux (2014). See also Hill and Smith (2011) for different perspectives on the EU's exercise of power.

7 See Meunier and Nicolaїdis (2006) for a discussion of the fungibility of EU trade power in the pursuit of non-trade objectives.

8 For exceptions that consider both ideational and material factors in the analysis of the EU as a power, see Youngs (2004) and contributions to Whitman (2011).

9 While Blaikie refers to ‘conceptual schemes’, his discussion of such analytical tools conforms to the understanding of ‘conceptual frameworks’ used herein.

10 For earlier discussions of market size from the CIPE literature, see Drezner (2007) and Gilpin (2001).

11 For examples, see Birchfield (2015); Jurje and Lavenex (2014); Miller et al. (2014); Oberthür and Rabitz (2014); Quaglia (2014a); Schulze and Tosun (2013); Staniland (2012); Turkina and Postnikov (2014); Young (2014).

12 For a discussion of the nature of the EU as a regulatory state in the context of the EU-as-a-power debates, see Orbie (2008: 27–30).

13 Such extensions can take place, for example, through technical assistance (Sabel and Zeitlin 2010: 22–3) or when third parties are included in the EU's internal governance processes across different policy areas (Lavenex 2014; Zeitlin 2015).

14 For examples of relevant CIPE work on domestic actors and preferences for externalizing product and process regulations, see Kelemen (2010), Kelemen and Vogel (2010) and Vogel (1995). For the different domestic bargaining dynamics at play in externalization, see Young and Wallace (2000) and Holzinger et al. (2008).

15 In addition, for a useful analysis of the EU's role in international institutions that hinges on a related concept of ‘performance’, see Oberthür et al. (2013).

16 Instead of attempting to externalize, the EU may also engage in what Müller et al. (2014) refer to as policy protection or policy import. While not attempts at externalization per se, they are important variations in EU global regulatory behaviour vis-à-vis international institutions. As such, it is worthy of investigating the extent to which market size, institutional features and interest contestation figure in the likelihood of the EU pursuing either of these two options.

17 See also Young (2015) for a discussion of processes of policy diffusion in the context of EU regulatory relations.

18 For Holzinger and Knill, the absence of communication may lead to independent problem-solving, through which convergence arises ‘as a result of similar but independent responses of political actors to parallel problem pressures’ (2005: 786). Under such conditions, it is unclear that the three characteristics of MPE would play any role in independent problem-solving.

19 For Article 3(3), see http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-1-common-provisions/4-article-3.html (accessed 24 March 2015).

20 For an investigation of the relationship between the EU's arms industry/trade and its normative power rhetoric, see Erickson (2013).

21 For further discussions of consistency, see Keukeleire and Delreux (2014: 113–15) and Portela and Raube (2012).

22 For discussions of different analytical and methodological aspects and problems related to the issue of inconsistency and the EU-as-a-power debates, see Diez (2005, 2013), Whitman (2011), Scheipers and Sicurelli (2007), Meunier and Nicolaїdis (2006) and Sjursen (2006). For a useful analysis that reveals the ways in which seemingly complementary objectives may become conflicting objectives, see Börzel and van Hüllen (2014).

23 Manners (2011: 233) seems to agree when he argues that ‘if normative justification is to be convincing or attractive, then the principles being promoted must be seen as legitimate, as well as being promoted in a coherent and consistent way'.

Additional information

Biographical note

Chad Damro is senior lecturer of politics and international relations and Co-Director of the Europa Institute at the University of Edinburgh.