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Normative Power Europe? The EU's Embrace of the Responsibility to Protect in a Transitional International Order
Author(s) -
Newman Edward,
Stefan Cristina G.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12953
Subject(s) - responsibility to protect , normative , european union , political science , norm (philosophy) , politics , law and economics , context (archaeology) , ambivalence , resizing , political economy , bureaucracy , power (physics) , international relations , sociology , law , human rights , international trade , social psychology , economics , psychology , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
This article assesses the EU's engagement with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm and considers the scope for its integration into the EU's activities and global strategy. We examine how the EU's engagement with R2P tests its normative leadership in the context of internal and external political challenges to its authority. We expand on previous studies of the EU's failure to live by example over R2P by adding a missing analytical dimension – trends at the global level – and by suggesting an alternative explanation for the apparent ambivalence towards R2P in some parts of the EU. The EU has engaged with R2P – albeit labelling it differently at times – more than many observers recognize and despite bureaucratic resistance and diverging national approaches. Rather, the fundamental constraint on the EU's role in promoting R2P relates to a transitional international order in which the EU's normative traction is in decline and European foreign policy elites are increasingly pragmatic and cautious.