Papers by Spyros Blavoukos
Politics and Governance, Apr 13, 2023
Regime complexes entail a variety of institutions with a degree of overlap in terms of thematic i... more Regime complexes entail a variety of institutions with a degree of overlap in terms of thematic issues and participating actors. The EU is such an actor engaging with other governmental and non-governmental entities in the formation and evolution of regime complexes. In this article, we examine the role of the EU in the international transport regime complex, and more specifically in two of its core international organizations, namely ICAO and IMO. Our actor-based approach focuses on how the EU navigates between these two constitutive components of the global transport regime complex, advancing climate change mitigation measures. Our empirical material shows how the EU's active engagement in ICAO contributed to the organization's shift vis-à-vis the role of the aviation industry in greenhouse gas emissions. Besides the EU learning process that occurred and led to a more engaging and less conflictual EU approach in IMO, the ICAO achievement increased pressure and created a more conducive environment for the respective recognition of the maritime industry's share in climate deterioration. In this respect, the EU benefited from the structure of the transport regime complex to pursue its own preferences.
Global Affairs, 2016
The Lisbon Treaty brought about significant changes regarding the EU's external representatio... more The Lisbon Treaty brought about significant changes regarding the EU's external representation system with new institutional structures set forward to enhance the role of the EU as a unified global actor. In this article, we focus on the UN General Assembly examining whether the coherence and visibility of the EU has increased in the post-Lisbon era. We operationalize and measure both concepts on the basis of oral interventions made by EU and EU member-states’ representatives in the Plenary and in the six Committees over a period of six UNGA sessions. Our analysis is based on verbatim records, official EU/UN documentation and 41 semi-structured interviews with officials in New York and Brussels. We find a smooth and by and large successful transition from the Council Presidency-based system to the EU Delegation-based system of representation that enhances the EU visibility in the UNGA. We also posit that after a period of adjustment and overcoming of intra-EU institutional hurdles, the EU coherence has increased overall. Both our findings testify to the gradual but unmistaken positive effect of the Lisbon changes on the EU foreign policy system at least as far as the UN General Assembly is concerned.
Review of International Studies, Jul 13, 2010
Chairs have a significant potential effect on the bargaining structure and conduct of multilatera... more Chairs have a significant potential effect on the bargaining structure and conduct of multilateral negotiations, addressing collective action problems that arise in decentralised bargaining. We examine the role of the Chair as a policy entrepreneur in multilateral negotiations, identifying the parameters that increase the Chair's entrepreneurship potential and condition the outcome of the Chair's entrepreneurial activities. We cluster the identified parameters in three groups of organisational attributes, comprising the Chair's mandate, available resources and (formal) constraints, in particular decision-making rules. We use this typology to analyse four important case studies within the UN setting.
Journal of European Integration, Oct 24, 2011
Performance in the United Nations (UN) is a key element of the EU’s ‘effective multilateralism’ s... more Performance in the United Nations (UN) is a key element of the EU’s ‘effective multilateralism’ strategy, especially in the UN Security Council (UNSC) that constitutes one of the two most significant political organs of the organization. In this article, we assess the EU’s performance in the UNSC by looking at two particular aspects of the EU-UNSC interaction: first, the broader
Cooperation and Conflict, Jan 12, 2017
In May 2011, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed Resolution 65/276 that enhances th... more In May 2011, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed Resolution 65/276 that enhances the European Union (EU) institutional mode of representation in the UNGA and other multilateral fora operating under its auspices. This followed an earlier, failed attempt that caused much embarrassment and political turmoil in the EU. The article examines the politics of this resolution, tracing its background logic, its origins and the political interactions in the UN that eventually led to its almost consensual embracement. It accounts for the failure in the first stage of the negotiations and how the EU responded to it, adjusting its bargaining strategy accordingly. This case study contributes to the better understanding of the links between intra-EU coherence and EU effectiveness as an international actor. We posit that there is one additional dimension of EU coherence not fully captured in the relevant literature. We distinguish between genuine coherence and generated coherence. The former entails homogeneity, or at least a significant degree of a priori convergence among EU member-states. The latter refers to EU positions that have emerged after hard and protracted intra-EU negotiations. The two types differ in the degree of flexibility bestowed on the EU in international negotiations.
West European Politics, Nov 1, 2008
... Pérez-Solórzano, Borragán Nieves. 2004. 'EU Accession and Interest Politics in Central a... more ... Pérez-Solórzano, Borragán Nieves. 2004. 'EU Accession and Interest Politics in Central and Eastern Europe'. ... In The Challenge of Change in EU Business Associations , Edited by: Greenwood, Justin. 207–212. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ...
1. Introduction: The EU Presence in International Organizations Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bou... more 1. Introduction: The EU Presence in International Organizations Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bourantonis 2. EU Contribution to and Cooperation with Multilateral Organizations Emil J. Kirchner 3. The European Union and NATO: Subordinate Partner, Cooperative Pillar, Competing Pole? James Sperling 4. The EU as a Security Actor: in and with the UN and NATO Hanna Ojanen 5. The Big Three and the High Representative: Dilemmas of Leadership Inside and Outside the EU Christopher Hill 6. The EU, the US and International Organizations: Trade Politics in the Global Political Economy Michael Smith 7. Effective Multilateralism on Trial: EU Compliance with WTO Law Alasdair R. Young 8. The European Commission in the WTO's DDA Negotiations. A Tale of an Agent, a Single Undertaking, and Twenty-Seven Nervous Principals Bart Kerremans 9.Commonwealth and the European Union: a Multilateralism of International Institutions Paul Taylor 10. Conclusions Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bourantonis
Government and Opposition, 2012
THE 1993 COPENHAGEN EUROPEAN COUNCIL RECOGNIZED THE membership eligibility of the countries of Ce... more THE 1993 COPENHAGEN EUROPEAN COUNCIL RECOGNIZED THE membership eligibility of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and spelled out concrete accession criteria, setting in motion the political process of EU enlargement. Early on, the Greek government expressed its full support to the EU enlargement on political and economic grounds, especially associated with the future of the Cypriot candidacy. 1 For a long time, Turkey's participation in this process came up against long-held Greek political and security concerns. The Greek objections were lifted at the Helsinki European Council in December 1999, reversing a long-standing Greek course of action and initiating an ongoing but still incomplete process of Greek-Turkish rapprochement. 2 How should we study a major foreign policy change that constitutes the outcome of intersecting, complex and multidimensional domestic and international processes? After a period of relatively limited breakthroughs in the analysis of foreign policy change due to the rigidity of the bipolar Cold War, dynamic aspects of foreign policy have come to the fore, not least because of systemic changes in international politics and paradigm shifts in the study of foreign policy. A few contributions have explicitly addressed the issue of
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2017
The chapter sets the framework of the book both in analytical and empirical terms. It discusses t... more The chapter sets the framework of the book both in analytical and empirical terms. It discusses the rationale of the book especially in light of the recent geopolitical and socio-economic changes in Europe and the world that have altered the EU engagement in world politics and the UN system more specifically. It outlines the questions the contributors address in their chapters and the existing knowledge base upon which they rely by providing a brief overview of the relevant literature. Furthermore, it presents and elaborates on the analytical framework that is applied by all contributors in their assessment of the international performance of the EU.
Studies in Comparative International Development, Apr 13, 2018
The European economic crisis need not be considered as a problem that is sui generis. Drawing on ... more The European economic crisis need not be considered as a problem that is sui generis. Drawing on literature from the political economy of development that centers on finance and on monetary policy, we show that the economic vulnerabilities and policy predicaments facing the European periphery share many similarities with problems encountered by middle-income developing countries. Three main concerns guide our discussion: the politics of credible commitment, the significance of state capacity for stabilizing credibility, and the challenges of maintaining democratic legitimacy during times of financial volatility. Our analysis of the dynamics of hard currency pegs and monetary unions draws on lessons from the classic Gold Standard and on more recent experiences of financial crises in emerging markets. We consider how these may apply to the Eurozone periphery, before drawing out some implications for the problems of core-periphery relationships in European Monetary Union.
Routledge eBooks, Dec 6, 2017
Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2015
Cold War History, Jan 27, 2014
This article, based on British and American archival sources, examines the response of the Wester... more This article, based on British and American archival sources, examines the response of the Western powers (mainly the US and the UK) to the Soviet disarmament initiatives in 1954–55. We shed some light on the Western states' attitude to the UN disarmament negotiations of this period, arguing that the two sides never actually came close to a settlement, since at least the Western side was hesitant to commit to any actual measures of disarmament. This article challenges part of the Cold War historiography that has incorrectly portrayed this particular period as the most opportune time for achieving disarmament.
Cooperation and Conflict, Jan 10, 2014
This paper examines foreign policy change, identifying structural parameters of domestic and inte... more This paper examines foreign policy change, identifying structural parameters of domestic and international origins that bring about major foreign policy shifts. Domestic structural parameters comprise the politico-institutional setting and advocacy groups in support of alternative foreign policy options. International structural parameters refer on the one hand to systemic changes that may bring about foreign policy realignment and, on the other hand, to the country’s role in the international system and its interactions with other countries that may activate foreign policy changes. We posit that this eclectic approach is necessary to account for major, multi-dimensional and complex, foreign policy decisions. We use this analytical framework to examine the Israeli re-orientation that enabled the signing of the Oslo Peace Agreement in the early 1990s.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2017
The Southern EU members (Greece, Spain and Portugal) have been long considered to share common vi... more The Southern EU members (Greece, Spain and Portugal) have been long considered to share common views vis-à-vis the EU economic governance regime, forming a distinctive group in EU intergovernmental negotiations on related issues. In this paper, we argue that changing party political constellations and domestic public policy reform in Southern Europe challenge this posture and call for a more qualified treatment of macro-perspectives of intra-EU alliances. EU coalitions are construed on the basis of converging interests and therefore subject to issue-specificity and conjunctures of political-ideological and socioeconomic nature. We illustrate this point by looking at the stance of the 'Southern bloc' on major EU economic and financial negotiations, culminating with the four multi-annual financial frameworks (1988, 1992, 1999, and 2005). Despite opposite accounts that claim a solid bloc is in place, we conclude that the cohesion of the 'Southern alliance' has been repeatedly tested and relations have oscillated from competition to coalition to divergence in different stages of their common EU trajectory during the last 25 years. We account for this oscillation by looking at three levels of analysis: (a) cross-governmental affinity of a partisan nature at the level of domestic politics (b) cross-national socioeconomic convergence at the level of domestic socioeconomic structures, and (c) intergovernmental power constellation at the level of EU politics.
In the post-Constitution EU, the rotating Presidency has been replaced by a hybrid system combini... more In the post-Constitution EU, the rotating Presidency has been replaced by a hybrid system combining a rotating component with the establishment of a permanent President for the European Council (and a Minister of Foreign Affairs). We examine how the new system came into being, the significant departure from past institutional arrangements and practices and most importantly the implications of such a development for the EU political order. The new system sets in place a new institutional actor; the question we address is whether this new institutional actor has the potential of evolving into an autonomous political actor as well. Using a principal-agent framework we look at the various functions of the President, the available resources, and the endogenous and exogenous parameters that will affect the President's effectiveness and efficiency, with particular emphasis on the control mechanisms set up by member states to check the President's actions. Our analysis suggests an unmistakable though by no means unconditional strengthening of the Presidency's potential for an autonomous political role in the new EU constitutional architecture.
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Aug 29, 2014
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Papers by Spyros Blavoukos