Publications of Merlingen, M.

ESDP police missions : meaning, context and operational challenges

Presents an evaluation of European Security and Defense Policy police missions. Significance of policing and police aid to national security; Important role of police assistance in international affairs; Structural challenges for European Communities policing.

Governmentality towards a Foucauldian framework for the study of IGOs

In this article I draw on the later work of Michel Foucault to elaborate a governmentality framework for the study of international governmental organizations (IGOs). The main `value added' of the proposed framework is that it brings into focus the micro-domain of power relations, thereby highlighting what mainline 100 studies fail to thematize. IGOs exercise a molecular form of power that evades and undermines the material, juridical and diplomatic limitations on their influence. They are important sites in the non-sovereign, microphysical workings of power that shape territorialized populations in unspectacular ways. In short, I argue that our understanding of IGOs remains incomplete if we do not pay attention to the effects of domination generated by their everyday governance tasks and good works. I develop this argument through a brief engagement with an innovative strand of 100 studies: research on international socialization, which is empirically illustrated through a brief exploration of the induction by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe of post-socialist countries into its embryonic security community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public diplomacy and the OSCE in the age of post-international politics : the case of the field mission in Croatia

The article argues against the widespread view that OSCE long-term missions should be constrained in their use of public diplomacy. The case rests on arguments that link the emergence of post-international politics to the need for a transformation of diplomatic practices. Missions need to engage in more and better public diplomacy because, in their host countries, subnational actors have the capacity to derail (or advance) the implementation of OSCE standards, even if national governments support (or oppose) mission goals. Diplomats who operate in such an environment cannot confine themselves to mission-to-government communication in their attempts to promote international security through domestic reforms. To illustrate the argument that missions have to reach out to local audiences in order to be effective agents of domestic change, a case study of the mission to Croatia is presented. Shortcomings in the mission's approach are pointed out, and it is argued that recent improvements in the implementation of OSCE standards are related to changes in the mission's diplomatic practices. In the conclusion, the article identifies steps the OSCE can take to enable and encourage missions to pursue more and better public diplomacy.

The Helsinki effect : international norms, human rights, and the demise of communism

Reviews the book "The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism," by Daniel C. Thomas.

Understanding European foreign policy

This article reviews the book "Understanding European Foreign Policy" by Brian White

The right and the righteous? European norms, domestic politics and the sanctions against Austria

In February 2000, 14 EU Member States collectively took the unprecedented step of imposing bilateral sanctions on their Austrian EU partner. How can this be explained? Was it, as the 14 governments argued, because the inclusion in the Austrian government of Jörg Haider's extreme right FPö opposes many of the ideas making up the common identity of the EU? Or, were the sanctions motivated, as the Austrian government argued, by narrow-minded party political interests that lurked beneath the rhetoric of shared European norms and values? Our analysis suggests that, without the particular concerns about domestic politics of certain politicians, it is unlikely that the sanctions against Austria would have been adopted in this form. On the other hand, without the recent establishment of concerns about human rights and democratic principles as an EU norm, it is unlikely that these particular sanctions would have been adopted collectively by all member governments. Thus, while norms might have been used instrumentally, such instrumental use only works, in the sense of inducing compliant behaviour, if the norms have acquired a certain degree of taken-for-grantedness within the relevant group of actors or institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idealismus, Realismus und die Westeuropaische Integration : eine Fallstudie

Idealism, realism and western European integration. A case study"In this article I employ a sort of narrative policy analysis in order to evaluate the idealistic turn in integration studies. I investigate those policy scripts about European monetary integration and German reunification that were written and enacted by French and German policy-makers in the period from 1986 to 1990. Two theoretically significant questions are at the center of this investigation. First, was the relationship between France and Germany at the time a security community, in which the attitude of the Hobbesian gladiator had disappeared from the foreign policy repertoires of the two countries? Second, was the debate about European monetary integration only about welfare, or is there any evidence that power political considerations entered into the policy deliberations? In my case study I find that both Hobbesian fear and traditional power political reflexes influenced policy choices regarding integration. The idealistic turn in integration studies, so my conclusion, is premature."