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Comparing Theories of the European Union: An essay on how to analyze the EU’s foreign policy and international power

The aim of this essay is to explain how IR theory relates to the European Union. Thisis motivated by the extensive use of empirical and descriptive studies on the EU. Togenerate knowledge on how theory relates to the EU, two seemingly differenttheories are compared. Neorealism and social constructivism are used to generatehypotheses, which are then tested on a quantitive study on the EU’s Common Foreignand Security Policy. The study covers the years of 2003-2005 and uses a statisticalmethod to present to empirical findings, which is supplemented by previous studieson EU’s foreign policy. The theoretical framework enables comparison of the twoemployed theories’ explanatory powers. The essay concludes that none of the theoriesprovides satisfactory explanations of in regard to EU’s global power and/or influence.Nevertheless, they are able to explain different aspects of the developments of EU’sforeign policy. Further theoretical studies should be undertaken in order to highlightthe issues of theory vis-à-vis the European Union.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-23103
Date January 2010
CreatorsSahlin, Jonathan
PublisherMalmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), Malmö högskola/Kultur och samhälle
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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