Norm contestation in EU foreign policy: Takeaways from EUSA Denver

Submitted by Maastricht University on Mon, 08/26/2019 - 17:24

NORTIA Blogpost in reflection of the EUSA 16th Biennial conference in Denver

by Dr Johanne Døhlie Saltnes, ARENA / University of Oslo

Coming to the EUSA conference in Denver, I was excited to participate in a panel that focussed on the increased contentedness of norms in EU foreign policy. The panel’s starting point was the hypothesis that European Foreign policy is changing towards a more interest-driven and power-based approach in recent years. The EU global strategy is often used as an example of this possible shift in EU foreign policy from commitments to the Union’s fundamental principles to a more clearly voiced interest-driven foreign policy. However, the panel also sought to go beyond the norms-versus-interest debate and investigate to what extent different norms are promoted and contested in EU foreign policy.

This aim picks up on the critical constructivist debate on nom contestation, which has caught attention over the last years. This debate has shown that norms are less constitutive than what was assumed by the so-called first generation constructivists in the 1990s. Scholars have argued that actors critically engages with norms and shape their validity and meanings-in-use continuously (Lantis 2016, Wiener 2018). For instance, McKeown (2009) and Panke and Petersohn (2016) have documented how norms such as torture and slavery have evolved over time and in the end died. Scholars find that contestation over norms can lead to both strengthening and weakening of the norm as well as increased legitimacy (Wiener 2018; Deitelhoff and Zimmermann 2014).

All four contributions to the panel ‘Contesting EU norms an EU normativity in EU foreign policy’ presented insights that feeds into the broader debate on norm contestation. First, Elise Ketelaars argued that the EUs Gender Action Plan has been inadequate to promote women’s rights in Ukraine and Tunisia. Examining the EU’s engagement with these countries in the area of security and justice she finds that the EU only selectively engage with gender justice issues due to the worry that extra requirements on gender would risk putting partner authorities off. The EU’s support to promote women’s rights do not go beyond local elite’s gender justice priorities illustrating that the EU was not willing to contest these countries efforts to enhance women’s rights.

Martina Furutter made a methodological argument in her analysis of how the scholarly debate on EU sanctions tend to focus only on the effectiveness of sanctions. Situations where sanctions have been considered but not actually carried out are often left out of the analysis. Hence, the literature’s focus on effectiveness overlooks the process of contestation that happens prior to the actual sanctioning process. By taking the violation of human rights and democracy as her empirical starting point, instead of the EU’s sanctions practice as such, she shifts the debate on EU sanctions from their effectiveness to the different and competing arguments that determines the decision to impose a sanction or to abstain from sanctioning violations of human rights.

Ragnar Weilandt contributed with his paper on the perception of EU democracy promotion in Tunisia, to the question of how the norm of deep and sustainable democracy resonate in the EU’s neighbourhood. He argues that the degree of acceptance and contestation of the EU’s model of promoting democracy is linked to its perceived ability to deliver socio-economic improvement locally. In contesting the European model, Tunisian groups were mainly inspired by domestic experiences and ideas that evolved within Tunisian society historically.

In my own contribution I presented findings from the contestation over European and United States’ efforts to promote and protect human rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, transsexual and intersexual (LGBTI) individuals as part of their foreign policy. In the case of the 2014 anti-gay law adopted in Uganda, local civil society organisations advocated for donors to limit the use of human rights sanctions. Civil society organisations highlighted the risk of stigma and scapegoating when human rights violations are connected to vulnerable groups, such as sexual minorities and advocated for emphasising human rights for all people instead of singling out LGBTI persons when donors addressed the issue publicly. The paper shows that a coordinated and strong civil society can function as a critical interlocutor and knowledge provider and can give donors the context-sensitive information necessary to evaluate their choice of response.

In sum, the papers illustrated that contestation of norms contribute to altering the EU’s foreign policy decisions. Hence, engaging with the critical constructivist debate on norm contestation can serve as a fruitful avenue to nuance the scholarly debate on EU foreign policy and move beyond the stalemate of identifying whether ‘norms’ or ‘interests’ drive EU foreign policy choices.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the NORTIA network for the support to attend the EUSA conference in Denver.

References

Deitelhoff, N. and L. Zimmermann (2014) ‘Things we lost in the fire: How different types of contestation affect the validity of international norms’ Working paper No. 18 Frankfurt: Peach Research Institute Frankfurt.

Lantis, J. (2016) ‘Agentic constructivism and the proliferation security initiative: Modelling norm change’ Cooperation and Conflict 51(3): 384-400.

McKeown, R. (2009) ‘Norm Regress: US Revisionism and the Slow Death of the Torture Norm’, International Relations 23(1): 5-25.

Panke D. and U. Petersohn (2016) ‘Norm challenges and norm death: The inexplicable?’ Cooperation and Conflict 51(1): 3-19.

Wiener, A. (2018) Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press