Twelve Tongues, One Voice : An Evaluation of European Political Cooperation

Abstract

Traditional integration theories disagree over the scope of the main foreign policy instrument of the European Union (EU), the so-called European Political Cooperation (EPC). While intergovernmentalism suggests that EPC actions are weak, neofunctionalism maintains that cooperation within the EPC framework is characterised by strong measures. In this article, we present a game-theoretic and statistical analysis of these conflicting propositions and show that European foreign policy making is much more diversified than predicted by the predominating theoretical approaches. A signalling game demonstrates that the exploitation of uncertainty by a possible profit-seeker outside the organisation can cause inadequate EPC decisions. The formal model also explores the extent to which joint interest in closer foreign policy coordination can help to overcome diverging national policy preferences. The empirical test of some game-theoretic hypotheses shows that European foreign policy making has become more intensive. The increasing number of declarations is, however, also a sign of the proliferation of non-committing statements. Logit regressions reveal a close relationship between the economic salience of an EPC target nation to the European Union and the intensity of an EPC reaction.