This thesis argues that the limited application of postcolonial perspectives in European Union (EU) enlargement studies, and especially in studying power relations, has led to a failure to properly identify and examine the extent to which the EU produces unequal power relations. Current studies of enlargement are largely based on mainstream positivist theories and thus overlook the importance of a post-positivist, critical and interpretivist research framework in understanding the EU and power relations. In contrast, by adopting postcolonialist perspectives and applying them to the case of the Romanian enlargement, the thesis presents a critical discourse analysis of the EU enlargement monitoring reports and interviews with officials of the EU and Romanian negotiating teams in order to demonstrate the extent to which the EU produces unequal power relations through instances of subalternity, orientalism and mimicry that have so far been identified and discussed by postcolonial scholars. Each of these three perspectives has so far been obscured to a large extent from the enlargement literature, as a result of the limited application of postcolonial approaches in EU studies. This thesis aims therefore to address this gap and advance the postcolonial research on the EU and unequal power relations.

La présente thèse vise à étudier le rôle stratégique de l'UE au-delà de ses frontières, à expliquer et à évaluer la politique de sécurité que l'Union a poursuivie à l'égard des pays voisins de l'Est pendant plus de deux décennies depuis le début des années 1990, avec un accent particulier sur la Géorgie. L'objectif principal est d'examiner dans quelle mesure l'UE - une zone de paix et de sécurité - a réussi à devenir un acteur sécuritaire dans son voisinage de l'Est, étendant la paix et la stabilité hors de ses frontières, surtout en vue de la politique d'un autre acteur central, qui essaie de renforcer sa puissance dans le complexe sécuritaire régional, la Russie. D'une part, un certain nombre de questions empiriques interroge la substance du rôle sécuritaire de l'UE en explorant ses caractéristiques principales en tant qu'acteur sécuritaire. D'autre part, l'étude s'intéresse à l'efficacité de la politique de l'UE à contribuer à la sécurité de la Géorgie. C’est dans le 'voisinage commun' que l'incompatibilité entre les intérêts et les instruments politiques de l'UE et la Russie devient apparente - les acteurs ayant des identités contrastées, proposant/représentant des modèles sécuritaires opposés pour la région. Pour analyser l'UE et la Russie en tant qu'acteurs sécuritaires en Géorgie et comprendre les implications de leurs politiques sécuritaires sur la région, cette étude s'interroge sur les principaux aspects qui sont intervenus dans la conception du rôle sécuritaire de l'UE, et ses performances - les facteurs qui ont contribué à renforcer ou bloquer l'efficacité du rôle sécuritaire de l'UE. / The present dissertation aims to study the strategic role of the EU beyond its borders, explain and assess the security policy that the Union has pursued towards its Eastern neighboring countries for more than two decades since the early 1990s with a particular focus on Georgia. The overall objective is to examine to what extent and how the EU - an area of peace and security - has been able to become a security actor in its Eastern neighborhood, extending peace and providing stability beyond its borders in view of security policy of another main actor seeking to increase its power projection in the regional security complex, Russia. From one side, a number of empirical questions inquire the substance of EU’s security role through exploring its main characteristics, and providing an understanding of how the EU functions as a security actor and explaining its particularity. From another side, the study is interested in the effectiveness of EU’s policy to contribute to Georgia’s security. It is in the 'shared neighborhood' that the incompatibility between the interests and political instruments of the EU and Russia becomes apparent - actors with contrasting identities an power natures, who provide opposing security models for the future of the region. To explore the EU and Russia as security actors in Georgia and get a better grip on the empirical meaning of their roles and implications of their policies on the region, this study questions the main aspects that have intervened in the conception of security roles by the EU and Russia, and their performance - the factors that have contributed or restrained the effectiveness of security role of the EU and Russia.

Constructivist accounts of the EU’s emergence as a security actor typically focus on changing conceptions of the Union’s role within a European context, at both national and EU levels. But few studies have analysed how significant Others in the international system understand the EU’s evolving role, which is assumed to play an important role in EU identity construction. This thesis analyses the nature of the US elite’s discourse on the EU, assessing the relative influence of factors - internal and external to the elite - in shaping its evaluations of EU security action. The study adopts a discursive institutionalist approach exploring how differing ideas about the EU are expressed and modifying this framework to examine how agents purposefully shape discourse in line with their preferences. By adapting the framework to focus on competing elite sub-groups, the project seeks to analyse discursive attempts at institutional change in greater detail. The study employed a qualitative content analysis of more than 100 texts produced by an ideologically and institutionally representative group of American foreign policy analysts and officials, in two cases: common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and counter terrorism cooperation. Public and classified official texts in the public domain were analysed to compare coordinative and communicative discourse. The findings indicate that ideological cleavages are mirrored in distinct narrative accounts of EU, which cross cut the Union’s differing security policy competence levels. While perceptions of European disunity and weakness dominated both conservative and liberal accounts, conservative analysts continued to portray EU security integration as threatening to US interests, a theme which has declined in importance in mainstream official discourse since the early 2000s. Empirically, the thesis provides a rich analysis of discourse on the EU in a context with significance both for scholars and policymakers concerned with external perceptions of the EU as a security actor. It provides a novel assessment of how American officials’ assessments of the EU differ in public and in private. By analysing the discursive tactics of influential elite sub-groups, it reveals an arena for competing accounts of the EU in which the Union’s differing policy competences are overshadowed by the elite’s ideological cleavages.

With lessons learned from the 1999 Kosovo intervention as a point of departure, this thesis addresses the question of whether the development of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) doctrine and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) actually made a difference in determining whether and how Europe responded to subsequent mass atrocities in its neighbourhood. Viewing the RtoP as an emerging international norm, a social constructivist framework is applied to explore the influence of norms on European foreign policy-making. It is argued that even an emerging international norm can be influential if it is considered a legitimate behavioural claim. The influence of the RtoP will be assessed by gauging the extent to which it is distinctively used to justify foreign policy decisions and to communicate the basis for those choices to a wider audience. The development of the RtoP and the CSDP from 1999-2011 in theory and practice paves the way for an in-depth case study analysis. Focusing on the UN, the EU as well as French, German and British discourses, the question of whether the RtoP has actually made a difference will be answered by scrutinizing European responses to the Libyan crisis (March – October 2011) and the Syrian crisis (March 2011 – September 2013). Ultimately, light is shed not only on the relevance of the RtoP for Europe but also on the role of the EU as a security actor in its neighbourhood.

The thesis tests the efficacy of Principal-Agent (PA) theory in explaining the creation and development of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As such, the thesis is subject as well as theory-driven. Empirically, the focal point is how the interaction between the EU member states and the European Commission affected the development of the ENP. It is a theme which is largely overlooked in the ENP literature. In terms of theory, the ENP represents a fascinating case study for PA analysis not only because it has rarely been applied to the field of EU foreign policy but also because PA has seldom been used for studying the evolution of a policy (both pre and post-delegation). Conceptualising EU member states as principals and the European Commission as agent, the thesis examines PA dynamics through the following three ENP policy stages: formulation (2002-2004), finalisation (2004-2006), and implementation (2007-2009). Three hypotheses are tested for each stage of the ENP. Two hypotheses are rooted in PA scholarship, and address the influence of the agent as an informal agenda-setter, while the third distinguishes the agent's influence between different stages of the policy development. Methodologically, the research design is based on within-case process-tracing while the empirical data is drawn from a triangulation of official documents, secondary sources and elite interviews. The thesis findings show that during the initial stages of the policy, the Commission took advantage of its favourable position (e.g. informational asymmetries and uncertainty among the member states) to establish itself as the key actor in the ENP. As the ENP evolved, the Commission’s influence has diminished while the member states, collectively and individually, became more engaged in determining the course of the policy. However, contrary to PA assumptions, member states' increased oversight over the Commission did not come as a response to disobedient behaviour. Based on the empirical data, the Commission, as an agent, was in fact trying to implement the ENP following the guidelines which were previously agreed by its principals. Thus, in the case of the ENP, my PA analysis shifts from the traditional inquiry of how principals control opportunistic agents, to examining how principals could hinder the work of the agent. This phenomenon, broadly defined by Thompson (2007) as the ‘principal problem’, is an anomaly in existing PA literature dominated by an agency-biased standpoint and has previously not been analysed in the context of the European Union. Finally, the wider implication of this thesis is that there is still room for broadening the scope of PA analysis while highlighting the necessity to keep a watchful eye on both the principals and the agent.

The European Union (EU) deployed its first police mission in 2003. Since then, the EU has deployed thirty-four missions around the world. Considering the great financial burden to the EU budget and the budget of contributing Member States (MS), as well as the fact that the realm of defence is one of the most overdue areas of the European integration project, this thesis asks the general but multifaceted question of where EU missions come from. To address this question the thesis explores the historic origins of EU missions, conceptualises them in view of the conceptual and theoretical developments in the literature and policy practice, and develops a model for the analysis of the decision-making process behind the deployment of EU missions. The model is tested on three case studies, namely the three EU missions deployed in the Horn of Africa European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) Atalanta, European Union Training Mission (EUTM) Somalia and European Union Capacity Building Mission (EUCAP) Nestor. The findings of the analysis reveal a gradual evolution of EU crisis management after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the establishment of the European External Action Service. The analysis indicates that EUNAVFOR Atalanta was primarily deployed due to French impetus at the level of the Political and Security Committee (PSC), but also due to a convincing call of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to the international community to act against the significant increase of piracy activity in the Gulf of Aden in 2008. The EUTM Somalia mission was primarily deployed due to a convincing strategy from the strategic planners at the EEAS, as well as the commitment of the United States (US) to a partnership with the EU to train recruits of the Somali Security Forces (SSF). Finally, the analysis of the third case study reveals even greater impact from the strategic planners at the EEAS and the acceptance at all levels of the EU s Comprehensive Approach to crisis management, and in particular due to the influential Strategic Framework for the Horn of Africa document. The overall interpretation of the findings conclude that the foreign policy of the EU is a moving target, constantly changing, as is exemplified by both the historic overview and the analysis of the three case studies, and that the analysts of EU foreign policy must remain open to these changes when choosing modes of studying EU foreign policy.

Practitioners and academics clearly established that participation in the EU system of foreign policy-making transforms national foreign policies. Whilst there have been detailed studies of the impact of participation in EU foreign policy on the original fifteen member states there are, as yet, few academic studies that have thoroughly investigated the impact of progressive integration in the area of EU foreign and security policy on the new (i.e. those who joined since 2004) member states. This thesis aims to address this deficit by focusing on the impact of Poland's participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It examines the processes of 'downloading', as it is argued here that involvement in CFSP has had a direct effect on both the procedures of foreign policy-making in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and, on the substance of Polish foreign policy as well as the impact of 'uploading' from member states to the EU level and 'crossloading' between EU member states. The thesis addresses the relevant conceptual issues and provides an outline of the academic debate regarding Europeanisation and foreign policy. It identifies three mechanisms that are responsible for change: conditionality, socialisation and learning. It suggests that a member state first adapts its national foreign policy to bring it in line with the EU's acquis politique and introduces basic changes in its institutional procedures in order to effectively participate in the EU's CFSP. Only later, does socialisation and learning result in changes to how national foreign policy is made, which then facilitates both changes to the substance of national policy and the uploading of national preferences to the EU level. A two-phase model of change is introduced which identifies April 2003, when Poland first became an active observer within the EU, as the date when Europeanisation began. The thesis provides a brief explanation of the transformation of Polish foreign policy after 1989, in order to provide contextual background for the four substantive chapters which follow: one procedural on the changes in the Polish MFA and three related to policy substance. The latter three chapters examine the Europeanisation of policy towards Poland's East European neighbours in general and policies towards Ukraine and Belarus in particular. The thesis concludes with a set of methodological and conceptual observations followed by analysis of the empirical findings.

En s’appuyant sur le cas d’Asie centrale, cette thèse a pour ambition de comprendre les principes, les mécanismes et le fondement du processus de la politique étrangère européenne actuelle par lesquels l’Union européenne s’efforce de construire une politique de « grand voisinage ». L’objectif central est de savoir si l’Union est en mesure de construire des relations stables et cohérentes avec un espace stratégique et dans un environnement géopolitique complexe, au­delà de sa politique européenne de voisinage. Il s’agit donc d’un cas d’étude sur le savoir­faire de l’Europe dans le monde. Notre étude a montré que l'UE essaie d'exercer son influence en prenant un rôle de « consultant ». Elle se présente comme un acteur inoffensif qui agit en dehors de tout enjeu géopolitique et qui offre son expertise. Ainsi, elle prend consciemment la position d'un acteur de second rang. Cependant, nous avons argumenté que sa vision de la région ainsi que son approche sont tout à fait de nature géopolitique, ce que l’UE dénie pourtant. Quant à son influence réelle, elle est limitée notamment en ce qui concerne sa politique normative (promotion de droits de l’homme, et d’état de droit). Bien que l'UE ne soit pas en mesure de rivaliser avec les autres acteurs dans la région (Russie, Chine), elle a pourtant des avantages comparatifs: elle est perçue comme inoffensive et occupe les domaines de sécurité qui sont négligés par les autres acteurs (la gouvernance, les conflits liés à l’eau et la gestion des frontières), jouant ainsi, certes d’acteur indispensable. / Central Asia is a region beyond the EU’s direct neighborhood and thus an area that allows the EU to demonstrate its desire to enter the global political stage where it needs to cope with other great powers and to pursue its own strategic interests. However, the Central Asian republics have shown little interest for European transition assistance and political norms, unlike other post­communist countries in Europe’s orbit. Hence, the central question of our study was thus: How does the EU exert influence in such a challenging geopolitical context? Our empirical results suggest that the EU tries to exert influence in such environment by consciously taking the position of a second­tier actor who acts as a “consultant”, rather than a power, and whose influence is confined to niche domains in the security sphere. The EU is eager to project a picture of itself as an honest broker with no geopolitical agenda in order to enhance its legitimacy; however, its vision of Central Asia being its ‘far neighborhood’ and the related approach unveils the geopolitical nature of its policies through which the EU tries to shape its close and wider environment. However, the EU struggles to put into effect its normative agenda beyond the EU’s direct neighborhood where other normative actors’ influence (Russia, China) exceeds that of the EU. The EU is not a great power in the region that is capable of competing with other external actors. Nor it is willing to become one. It does, however, have comparative advantages in being perceived as inoffensive and for occupying areas that are neglected by the other actors, thus playing the role of a niche actor, albeit an indispensable one.

La thèse analyse la politique de la France vis-à-vis de l’adhésion de la Turquie à l’Union européenne entre 1995 et 2012 en se concentrant sur l’influence des personnalités des présidents Jacques Chirac et Nicolas Sarkozy sur cette politique. Cette recherche de psychologie politique s’inspire de la théorie sociocognitive de la personnalité d’Albert Bandura. Après des développements appelant à une meilleure prise en compte des décideurs individuels en science politique, la thèse montre que la politique française vis-à-vis de l’adhésion turque se distingue par un processus de décision centralisé autour de la personne du président de la République. Le soutien de la France à l’adhésion turque entre 1995 et 2007, à rebours de l’opinion publique, s’explique par la personnalité de Jacques Chirac : son système de croyance, sa détermination, son indépendance d’esprit. L’élection de Nicolas Sarkozy en 2007 est une rupture dans la position française envers la Turquie. En raison d’un calcul de politique intérieure qui correspond à son système de croyance, le nouveau président prend la décision de ne plus soutenir l’adhésion turque, bien que la France ne mette pas de veto à la poursuite des négociations entre l’UE et la Turquie. Malgré ce compromis initial, Paris et Ankara connaissent une sévère détérioration de leurs relations bilatérales entre 2007 et 2012 en raison de la personnalité de Nicolas Sarkozy. Ce dernier mène une politique de rejet de la Turquie sur plusieurs dossiers (Union pour la Méditerranée, Saison de la Turquie en France, intervention en Libye). Aussi, son tempérament désinhibé irrite les autorités turques. / The thesis analyzes the policy of France towards Turkey’s accession to the European Union between 1995 and 2012 by concentrating on the influence of Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy’s personalities on this policy. This political psychology research is inspired by Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory of personality. After developments calling for a better consideration of the individual decision-makers in political science, the thesis shows that French policy towards Turkish accession distinguishes itself through a centralized decision-making process around the President of the Republic. The support of France for Turkish accession between 1995 and 2007, against the public opinion, is explained by the personality of Jacques Chirac: his belief system, his determination, and his independence of mind. The election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 is a rupture in the French position towards Turkey. Because of a domestic politics calculation corresponding to his belief system, the new President decides not to support Turkish accession anymore, even though France does not veto the pursuit of negotiations between the European Union and Turkey. In spite of this initial compromise, Paris-Ankara relations are severely damaged between 2007 and 2012, a situation that can be explained by the personality of Nicolas Sarkozy. The latter has a policy of rejection of Turkey on several topics (the Union for the Mediterranean, the Season of Turkey in France, the intervention in Libya). What is more, his uninhibited temperament irritates the Turkish authorities.

L’exportation des normes de l’UE vers les pays voisins dans le domaine de la régulation des marchés gaziers et de leurs infrastructures est devenue le leitmotiv de la politique énergétique européenne extérieure. Cette thèse analyse les défis énergétiques auxquels est confrontée l’UE ; elle évalue également la politique européenne en matière de sécurité énergétique vis-à-vis de l’Azerbaïdjan et de l’Algérie ainsi que l’influence transformatrice de l’Union dans ces pays. L’analyse cherche à comprendre si, et dans quelle mesure, l’UE peut exporter ses normes vers les deux fournisseurs gaziers dans le cadre de sa gouvernance énergétique extérieure. La démarche méthodologique met en évidence les limites des explications dominantes de convergence fondées sur l’institutionnalisme rationnel et constructiviste et se propose de les enrichir en s’appuyant sur les cadres analytiques des études de diffusion et du « decentring ». Sur la base d’ouvrages spécialisés, de documents officiels et de 85 entretiens avec des acteurs publics de l’UE, d’Azerbaïdjan et d’Algérie et avec des acteurs privés à Bruxelles, Bakou et Alger, l’analyse cherche à expliquer la plus ou moins grande convergence des normes de l’UE. L’analyse s’attache à la coopération énergétique avec l’UE, les secteurs énergétiques et les projets d’infrastructures des deux pays au travers de six études de cas. La thèse se propose d’élargir la portée des études existantes en intégrant les influences de la situation géopolitique et du marché qui pèsent souvent de manière plus importante que les contraintes européennes et soutient dès lors que la gouvernance énergétique extérieure est seulement durable, si elle est « décentrée ». / The export of EU norms to regulate gas markets and transnational infrastructure has become the leitmotif of EU external energy policy in the neighbourhood. This thesis unpacks the underlying energy policy challenge of the EU, before analysing its approach to ensure energy security towards Azerbaijan and Algeria and examining the Union’s transformative influence. The major question of the research is: How and to which extent can the EU export its energy norms and policies towards both strategic neighbouring suppliers of natural gas, which represent least likely cases of EU external energy governance? The analytical framework sheds light on the limits of major rationalist and constructivist institutionalist explanations in accounting for convergence with EU energy norms and addresses them by drawing on insights from diffusion studies and the decentring framework. Relying on qualitative document and data analysis as well as extensive fieldwork and 85 interviews carried out with EU, Azerbaijani and Algerian officials as well as representatives of energy companies in Brussels, Baku, and Algiers, the research accounts for a varying degree of convergence as the result of an unstable and conflictual process. Examining energy cooperation with the EU, domestic energy sectors and major infrastructure projects within six case studies, the analysis sheds light on EU norm export from a bottom-up perspective of neighbouring public actors. The thesis broadens the scope of existing studies by factoring in geopolitical and market-based constraints and influences, which often outweigh EU coercion and depicts that EU external energy governance can only be sustainable, if it is ‘decentred’.