Informal groups in EU foreign policy: a social network analysis

ABSTRACT

After decades of increasing integration and institutional development in EU foreign policy, the persistence of informal groups calls into question the understanding of European integration as a straight progressive line from informal to formal cooperation. Nonetheless, to date there is no systematic empirical knowledge of informal groups in EEC/EU foreign policy. To address this knowledge gap, the article offers an exploratory study. By means of social network analysis, it maps the frequency and types of informal groups in EEC/EU foreign policy in regard to Kosovo, Libya and Syria in three different phases of EEC/EU foreign policy integration. The article’s findings show that the frequency of informal groups has remained fairly stable across the three phases of EEC/EU integration considered. At the same time, informal groups have generally been relatively small, like-minded, and dominated by individual member states. Overall, these results suggest that by accommodating member states’ interests, especially those of powerful states and of states for which certain foreign policy issues are particularly salient, informal groups have provided the cooperation needed for the coherent functioning of the EEC/EU foreign policy system. While doing so, they have consolidated as socially meaningful patterns among member states’ representatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Informal groups
• EU foreign policy
• informal governance
• Kosovo
• Libya
• Syria

Acknowledgements

My special thank goes to Johanna Breuer, Andrea Capati, Giorgia Priorelli and Kira Schmidt who assisted me in gathering the data on which this article is based. Earlier versions of this work were presented at a workshop on ‘Informality and Global Governance’ convened by Charles Roger at IBEI, Barcelona (12 May 2023) and at the Annual Conference of the Italian Political Science Association in Genova (14–16 September 2023), where they were fruitfully discussed by Robert Kissack and Marianna Lovato respectively. I would also like to thank the journal editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The acronym EEC stands for European Economic Community.

2 By analysing informal groups occurring both within and outside the EU institutional structure, Delreux and Keukeleire (2017) provided an important exception to this trend. However, while their study explains informal groups’ main features through a static perspective, it does not consider their patterns and variations over time.

3 The acronym EEAS stands for European External Action Service.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to this publication has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie [grant number 892444].

Notes on contributors

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré is Assistant Professor at LUISS University’s Department of Political Science. She is also Visiting Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies/European University Institute.