Asserting a leading role for the European Union in international aviation: When aspirations meet reality
| Author | Michael Charokopos |
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020702014563109 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2015, Vol. 70(1) 40–62
! The Author(s) 2014
Asserting a leading role
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for the European Union
DOI: 10.1177/0020702014563109
ijx.sagepub.com
in international aviation:
When aspirations
meet reality
Michael Charokopos
Jean Monnet Chair on EU Law and Policies, University of Piraeus,
Piraeus, Greece
Abstract
More than a decade after the European Court of Justice’s ‘‘open skies’’ judgments, is the
European Union (EU) now capable of asserting a leading role in the international aviation
regime? This article approaches the EU’s external aviation policy through the lenses of role
theory and, more precisely, through the threefold connotation of the concept of role: role
conceptions, role expectations, and role performance. It finds that there is a converging
tendency between the three dimensions and that the gap between external expectations and
actual policy behaviour on the one hand, and the EU’s aspiration for a leading role in inter-
national aviation on the other, is diminishing. Over time, then, the EU could indeed transform
from a regional trendsetter into a leading player in the international aviation regime.
Keywords
US–EU aviation relations, international aviation regime, regionalization, open skies,
European Common Aviation Area, EU–International Civil Aviation Organization
relations, role theory
More than a decade has passed since the ‘‘open skies judgments’’ on 5 November
2002 laid the foundation for the European Union’s (EU’s) external aviation policy,
as well as for its aspirations for greater influence over the international avi-
ation regime.1 Over the last decade, the EU has attempted to serve as the regulatory
1.
For instance, Jacques Barrot, ex-vice president of the commission responsible for transport, has
mentioned the ‘‘desire’’ to ‘‘replicate’’ the EU air transport system on an international level. See
Jacques Barrot, ‘‘Turbulent times,’’ speech at Aviation Conference, Chatham House, London,
Corresponding author:
Michael Charokopos, University of Piraeus, 150 Androutsou Street, Piraeus, 185 32, Greece.
Email: mchar78@yahoo.com
Charokopos
41
driver of the aviation regime at the regional, and increasingly the international,
level by attempting to export rules and ideas governing its own aviation model.
The impact of this expansive attitude is not negligible. Policy measures extending
beyond the EU’s single aviation market have been linked to more controversial
issues like the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS).
If ‘‘contemporary European foreign policy is full of aspirations,’’2 the EU exter-
nal aviation policy provides a good example of such aspirations, which culminate
with the assertion of a leading role in the international aviation regime.
Incorporating the schematic conceptualization of Europe’s international role
through a ‘‘capability–expectations gap,’’3 the dependent variable of the analysis
is the ‘‘gap’’ between aspirations and actual politics. On the basis of this schematic
approach, the article considers to what extent the EU can transform itself from a
‘‘regional trendsetter’’ into a leading player in the international aviation regime.
There are currently two leading theoretical approaches to understanding the gap
between the aspirations and the reality of the EU’s external aviation policy: the
EU-as-actor approach and the neo-institutionalist approach.4 The central concern
of the first theory is ‘‘the extent to which the EU has become an actor in global
politics.’’ From this perspective, Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler examine
‘‘which internal and external factors have permitted, promoted or constrained the
development of the EU’s roles in global politics; how and to what extent is the EU
perceived as an actor by its various ‘audiences.’’’5 This approach is interested in the
kind of global actor the EU is or aspires to be. It focuses on the evolution of the
EU as a regional leader and its role in the regionalization of the world order.6
The EU-as-actor approach has contributed considerably to understanding the
EU’s evolving role in international relations. However, it has also been criticized
for assuming ‘‘that the EU can be appropriately analysed and evaluated as a single
actor,’’7 and thus failing to appreciate the intricate, multidimensional process of
EU foreign policy-making.
5 March 2007, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference¼SPEECH/07/119&for-
mat¼HTML&aged¼1&language¼EN&guiLanguage¼en (accessed 30 January 2012).
2.
See Knud Erik Jørgensen, ‘‘Theorising the European Union’s foreign policy,’’ in Ben Tonra and
Thomas Christiansen, eds., Rethinking European Union Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2004), 12.
3.
Christopher Hill, ‘‘The capability—expectations gap, or conceptualizing Europe’s international
role,’’ Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 3 (1993): 305–328.
4.
See Brian White, ‘‘Foreign policy analysis and European foreign policy,’’ in Tonra and
Christiansen, eds., Rethinking European Union Foreign Policy, 45–48.
5.
Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler, The European Union as a Global Actor, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Routledge, 2006), 13.
6.
See, among others, Marieke Zwartjes, Luk Van Langenhove, Stephen Kingah, and Le´onie Maes,
‘‘Determinants of regional leadership: Is the European Union a leading regional actor in peace and
security?’’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 12, no. 3 (2012): 393–405; Luk Van
Langenhove and Ana-Cristina Costea, ‘‘The EU as a global actor and the emergence of ‘third
generation’ regionalism,’’ in Paolo Foradori, Paolo Rosa, and Ricardo Scartezzini, eds.,
Managing a Multilevel Foreign Policy: The EU in International Affairs (Plymouth: Lexington
Books, 2007), 63–86.
7.
White, ‘‘Foreign policy analysis and European foreign policy,’’ 46.
42
International Journal 70(1)
In contrast, neo-institutionalism emphasizes the structure within which global
actors can function.8 It considers the gap between aspirations and reality as a
function of the institutional setting. Institutions, in this context, include ‘‘informal
conventions of political life as well as . . . formal constitutions and organizational
structures.’’9 What is more, they are not just facilitators of the bargaining process
that reduce uncertainty and transaction costs between member states;10 they are
also key factors in interest and identity formation.11
However, neo-institutionalism has its own limitations. By assuming that sys-
temic imperatives determine the behaviour of the actors, neo-institutionalists find it
difficult to explain the particularity of actors whose behaviour diverges from the
expected norms.12 Brian White therefore concludes that structuralist approaches
like neo-institutionalism cannot effectively explain the role of domestic actors in the
foreign policy process.13
Beginning with the premise that agency and structure are ‘‘mutually constitutive
and co-determined,’’14 this article approaches the gap between aspirations and
reality through the theoretical lenses of role theory. As Lisbeth Aggestam has
explained, ‘‘role concepts provide an essential link between agent and structure,
as they incorporate the manner in which foreign policy is both purposeful and
shaped by institutional contexts.’’15 From this perspective, role conception, role
expectations, and role performance are the three independent variables of the ana-
lysis, delimiting the canvas on which the contrast between the idealistic perspective
reflected by aspirations and the realistic interpretation of international aviation
politics is drawn. More specifically, role conception refers to self-image and iden-
tity, role expectations to structure and norms prescribing behaviour, and role per-
formance to agency.16
The case studies that provide the necessary empirical material for this analysis
derive from two central aspects of EU involvement in international aviation: the
EU–US open skies negotiations and the regional dimension of the EU’s external
8.
Of course, the different strains of neo-institutionalism could provide diverging explanations of the
‘‘gap.’’ While the most common distinctions are between rational choice, historical, and socio-
logical institutionalism, there is a much wider variety of strains of neo-institutionalism. See, for
instance, Vivien Lowndes, ‘‘The institutional approach,’’ in David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, eds.,
Theory and Methods in Political Science, 3rd ed. (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 65.
9.
Lowndes, ‘‘The institutional approach,’’ 61.
10.
See, for instance, Andrew Moravcsik, ‘‘A new statecraft? Supranational entrepreneurs and inter-
national cooperation,’’ International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 267–306.
11.
Adrian Hyde-Price, ‘‘Interests, institutions and identities,’’ in Tonra and Christiansen, eds.,
Rethinking European Union Foreign Policy, 104.
12.
White, ‘‘Foreign policy analysis and European foreign policy,’’ 47.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 184.
15.
Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘‘Role identity and the Europeanization of foreign policy: A political-cultural
approach,’’ in Tonra and Christiansen, eds., Rethinking European Union Foreign Policy, 82.
16.
Marijke Breuning, ‘‘Role theory research in international relations: State of the art and blind
spots,’’ in Sebastian Harnisch, Cornelia Frank, and Hanns W. Maull, eds., Role Theory in
International Relations: Approaches and Analyses (Oxford: Routledge, 2011),...
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