Understanding Transatlantic Relations

Serena Simoni

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136476952
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In light of the Arab Spring and after days of public quarreling that highlighted the divisions among NATO's members on an agreement to give command of the "no-fly" zone in Libya to the Alliance, it is evident that the U.S. is having problems engaging with its European allies and partners. Why is this happening?

Breaking away from the conventional way to study transatlantic relations, Serena Simoni uses a Constructivist theoretical lens to argue that the transatlantic partners' changing identities since the early 1990s have influenced their political interests and, as a consequence, their national security policies. Contemporary divergences are a notable byproduct of these transformations. By focusing on cases of disagreement (i.e., NATO's enlargement, the International Criminal Court, and Debt Relief for Africa), this book shows how since the 1990s, the US has started to see itself as the actor carrying the international defense burden, while the European Union has developed an image of itself as the actor in charge of humanitarian efforts, which generally entails diplomacy rather than military efforts. Contemporary cases of disagreement as the Arab Spring, Libya, and Foreign Assistance in Africa illustrate how redefined national identities continue to alter the course of transatlantic relations.

Understanding Transatlantic Relations provides a more accurate examination of the future of transatlantic relations and offers an understanding of those issues that the United States and Europe would consider important enough to justify their cooperation.

Part I

Historical Context and Theories of Transatlantic Relations

1 Introduction

In the light of the Arab Spring and after days of public quarreling, which highlighted the divisions among NATO’s members on an agreement to give command of the “no-fly” zone in Libya to the alliance, it is evident that the United States is having problems engaging with its European allies and partners. The question is why is this happening?

International relations practitioners and policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic have tended to dismiss potentially poisonous crises in transatlantic relations that could lead to a significant change in those relations (e.g., the Suez crisis, the Gaullist challenge, criticism of the Vietnam War, the clashes caused by Reagan’s policies of the early 1980s). Those transatlantic disagreements were considered little family squabbles, which would not cause major long-term problems, for, as the Latin locution states, Ubi Maior Minor Cessat. Certainly, in the East-West confrontation, America and Europe had no alternative but to collaborate in order to counter the threat of the Soviet Union. As it was initially conceived, this was a relationship predominantly focused on a military dimension, but that dimension soon broadened to encapsulate economic and political elements, which were underscored by values common to both sides. Differences, therefore, were resolved and discrepancies settled. The end of the Cold War, however, changed the international system and brought about two fundamental transitional phases in the transatlantic relationship: the first was in 1991–2001, the second in 2001–2011.

The first cracks in U.S.-European relations began to appear in 1989. German reunification had been a common goal for most of the Cold War, but when it became a reality, Americans and Europeans were divided in their vision of the new scenario. For better or for worse, faithful to their old notion of “keeping the Germans down,” the Europeans were not much thrilled with the prospect of German unification, nor were they pleased with the George H. W. Bush administration’s support for it. The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, perceived it as potentially causing the destabilization of Eastern Europe.¹ In 1990, the president of France, Francoise Mitterrand, said that he would “fly off to Mars” if Germany were to reunite.² Indeed, on this issue the Europeans were closer to the Soviet Union’s negative view.³ The Soviets seemed to have two approaches: either to block Germany’s reunification with the support of the UK and France; or, if that plan did not work, to prevent Germany from joining NATO.⁴ But in the end, Americans obtained what they wanted: a united Germany integrated into NATO.⁵

The extent to which these differences are the source and outcome of change in the international context is the subject of this book. In order to investigate this question, I have analyzed the processes that link contexts and actions in the development of a sense of identity and the effect that a shifting identity has on subsequent actions and contexts. This book intends to contribute to previous analyses that have focused on the process of identity as the product of constant interaction with the international context; and I, like others, reject the idea that the state or its leaders purposely opt for a specific identity and impose it nationally and internationally.⁶ Consequently, in my empirical research, I have examined transatlantic divisions in six post-Cold War and post-9/11 cases where the United States and its European allies disagreed on three main areas of cooperation as articulated in the New Transatlantic Agenda: promoting peace, promoting stability, and promoting development around the world.⁷

Fundamentally, this book investigates why the United States and its European allies have problems engaging with each other. While there are studies that address crises and change in the transatlantic relationship, there is no single volume that analyzes them in a comparative framework and from a perspective concerned with creating a conceptual lens with which to study the relationship. This, I believe, is an effective way to proceed in a field that has traditionally lacked conceptual approaches and has focused almost entirely on military-security issues. This volume examines whether new identities are emerging and whether these identities are changing American and European interests.

Each chapter analyzes a case in which there was disagreement (NATO’s enlargement, the International Criminal Court, Debt Relief for Africa, the Arab Spring, Libya, and Foreign Assistance) and tests the notion of constructivism and its suitability for explaining transatlantic relations.

The traditional conceptual approaches, which dominate current analyses of the transatlantic relationship, are fairly standard. Neorealists and neoliberals have completed studies of Euro-American relations based on power politics and on the role of institutions.⁸ However, such analyses cannot offer an adequate account of the disagreements between the United States and Europe, because they do not take into consideration the effects of identities on interests and on behavior. I will demonstrate how in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union; and in the 2000s, in the aftermath of 9/11, identities redefined interests in the transatlantic relationship. In six case studies, this book examines the evolution of context, interest and identity during the two periods mentioned above: 1991–2001 and 2001–2011. In the first period, there was no perceived common enemy that could catalyze the partners, and in the second, Islamic terrorism was construed as the new common threat. The world-shattering context created by 9/11 has strongly affected American and European identity and interests and consequently their relationship. The post-9/11 context propelled to the fore old discussions and reemphasized an imminent danger as the catalyst of transatlantic relations. These accounts, however, add little to our understanding because they assume that the substance of those interests is unchanging and comprises some mixture of the need for survival, power, wealth, and security. To the contrary, from a constructivist theoretical approach, I argue that interests are not fixed or given and that social relations influence interests, not material resources. As Hurd puts it, “what distinguishes a specifically constructivist story on interests is that the influences on interest formations are social.”⁹ In essence, a constructivist would argue that the transatlantic partners’ current preoccupation with Iran’s development of nuclear weapons is a response to the social relationship between the West and Iran, rather than to nuclear weapons per se. This constructivist focus leads to a larger issue: the relationship between structures and agents. Structures are institutions and shared meanings that form the international context in which states act. Agents are the actors who work within such an international context. Ultimately, going back to the example of Iran, the hostile relationship between the West and Iran is not fixed and stable, but is rather the product of continuous interactions between the West and Iran, and among these two entities and their social context. These exchanges may harden the relation of hostility, or they may alter it. Additionally, they may change the larger social structures in which agents exist, including norms and other forms of shared meaning regarding interests or threats.¹⁰

In this context, structures and states are mutually constituted. Hence, the actions that states undertake contribute to the formation of international norms and institutions and such norms and institutions influence, shape and socialize states. What is even more important, both structures and states can be redefined in the process. In studying transatlantic relations during the last 20 years, it is clear that the United States and Europe have shifted their behavior in response to changing structures; and, in so doing, international norms and institutions have simultaneously influenced the interests and behavior of the United States and Europe. Contemporary divergences are thus a notable by-product of these transformations.

The constructivist approach does not entail any particular method of analysis. To the contrary, constructivists are divided into two camps: a positivist camp and post-positivist one, divided by a controversy over epistemology and the use of scientific methods in the study of international relations. Positivists argue that the socially constructed international system comprises patterns that can be generalized and falsified.¹¹ In this view, objective laws govern patterns of behavior and of social interactions. The study of world politics is thus aimed at explaining the cause-effect relationships, which are independent from the observer.¹²

Post-positivists, to the contrary, maintain that there is no single objective reality, but a multiplicity of perspectives that challenge any classification. Therefore, when studying international relations it is impossible to separate “causes” and “effects.” What one can do is recognize that social laws are “inherently contingent,” not natural and objective.¹³ Thus, social inquiry should be concerned with how discourses and practices shape international politics and interactions between states.¹⁴ In line with such a methodological view, this book will attempt to interpret in what way the mutual constitution of social meanings and states redefine interests and behavior, and, how in the process, it changes structures and agents. Such an examination analyzes social practices as constitutive of policies and advances the scholarship in international relations on identity, social practices and norms.¹⁵

I. Interests, Identity, Context and Action in International Relations

In order to move forward, it is necessary to establish the usage of the concepts of interest, identity, context and action.

Just to be clear, I am not questioning the notion that states are self-interested. States do indeed seek power, security and wealth, but the question remains as to how states conceptualize their interests. As Martha Finnermore asked in her seminal work, National Interests in International Society: “how do states know what they want?”¹⁶ In order to answer this question, constructivists challenge the common assumption held by many realists, liberals, and Marxists in international relations: that interests are a consequence of material sources.¹⁷ In essence, going back to my example, they challenge the idea that the West’s preoccupation with Iran’s nuclear program derives entirely from its possible acquisition of nuclear weapons. The possession of material sources alone does not explain why the West is not worried if Israel retains nuclear capabilities. It follows that it is not merely military capabilities that shape the interests of the states. Rather, identities underpin interests.

Military capability is certainly critical in dealing with external threats, but the conceptualization of whom and what must be protected determines what weapons to acquire; in other words, it determines interests. Furthermore, when neorealists argue that, given the anarchic structure of the international system, each state seeks to survive,¹⁸ they suggest that “survival” is the fundamental interest. Theorizing survival as the fundamental interest, however, presupposes an identity, or a self, to be preserved.¹⁹ At this point the question becomes how do states know who they are? Constructivists respond that the social structures of the international system create states as actors with certain identities and interests. It follows that interests and identities are socially created.

Constructivists who study alliances explain that shared identity (e.g., the Western identity) makes states willing to go beyond just bearing the cost to protect themselves. Moreover, it makes states keen to invest in collective security. In this book, I will be advancing a different although not incompatible argument: if the collective “Self” shrinks, so does the willingness to work together toward collective security.

The claim that international institutions can transform state interests is central to neoliberal challenges to the realist assumption that “process” (i.e., interaction and learning among states) cannot fundamentally affect system “structure” or the context (i.e., anarchy and the distribution of capabilities).

Constructivist scholarship points to ways in which the identities and interests of states are socially constructed by knowledgeable practice, or action.²⁰ Alexander Wendt, in the well-known article, “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” builds a bridge between constructivism and neoliberalism by developing a theory of identity- and interest-formation in support of the neoliberal claim that international institutions can transform states’ interests.²¹ He focuses on the realist view of anarchy, which determines states’ behavior. For realists, the anarchic system is necessarily a self-help system, which justifies a lack of interest in the processes of identity and interest formation.²²

Conversely, Wendt claims that self-help is not a function of anarchy but of process and, as such, is itself an institution that determines the meaning of anarchy and the distribution of power for state action.²³

In other words, the self-help environment is socially created by states’ interactions. “Self-help” can be transformed by practices of sovereignty, by an evolution of cooperation, and by critical strategic practice. It follows that anarchy, and thus the international system, is, as Wendt argues, what states make of it.

This reasoning is germane to my definitions of interests, identity, context and action.

Interests. Interests are not a set of fixed and innate concerns, and the structure that determines the behavior of the states does not depend on material factors such as the distribution of power, or geography. Instead, ideas and norms constrain and construct the ways in which states define their interests.

Identity. The concept of identity is the perception of the state’s “self.” That is, states and their leaders develop an understanding of their state’s “self” or its identity. This understanding determines the behavior of the states within the international system. In other words, states’ identity produces states’ interests. However, identity is created socially by interactions with other states within the international system. The behavior of the state is the consequence of such relations. It is not produced by factors external to the system. Rather, it is endogenous to both the system and its relations.²⁴

Context. The context, or international structure, is the normative structure within which states operate. This structure is fluid and constantly changing, a characteristic that depends on changes in meanings. For example, the emergence of new human ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Historical Context and Theories of Transatlantic Relations
• Part II Transatlantic Relations from the End of the Cold War to 9/11
• Part III Transatlantic Relations from 9/11 to Today
• Part IV Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index