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Squaring the Circle? Assessing the EU foreign policy impact in Kosovo

Jusufi, Valmir LU (2013) STVM23 20131
Department of Political Science
Abstract
Abstract

The notion of external political impact, constitutes a useful approach in order to assess the EU as a distinctive foreign policy actor, one which, on occasion, does not necessarily need the same instruments as traditional nation-state do, to exert political influence. The present thesis applies this concept to measure the political impact of the EU foreign policies on disputes between Kosovo and Serbia. By taking an ‘outside-in’ approach, i.e. focusing on how a nonmember state absorbs the EU’s effects, this thesis aims is to measure the extent to which the EU foreign policy actions effectively influenced the behavior and policies of the disputing parties in Kosovo. The disciplined-configurative case study is adopted. Apart from... (More)
Abstract

The notion of external political impact, constitutes a useful approach in order to assess the EU as a distinctive foreign policy actor, one which, on occasion, does not necessarily need the same instruments as traditional nation-state do, to exert political influence. The present thesis applies this concept to measure the political impact of the EU foreign policies on disputes between Kosovo and Serbia. By taking an ‘outside-in’ approach, i.e. focusing on how a nonmember state absorbs the EU’s effects, this thesis aims is to measure the extent to which the EU foreign policy actions effectively influenced the behavior and policies of the disputing parties in Kosovo. The disciplined-configurative case study is adopted. Apart from secondary sources, official documents and reports were broadly used in this study. The overreaching result is that the EU exerted considerable or significant degree of political impact in three cases, thus causing changes on both conflicting parties and confirmed the EU’s clout. However, the EU’s foreign policy actions generated nil effects in one case, and marginal impact in one case, highlighting two facts: the EU’s own disarray adversely af-fected its ability to makes its presence felt, and, lack of ownership in the case of the EU-LEX was a result of its ‘constructive ambiguity’. The EU foreign policy actions successfully relied on diplomatic means, accession perspective incentives and conditionality. The empiri-cal evidence challenges the conventional wisdom, according to which, the military dimen-sion is viewed as a precondition to successfully exert political influence in international af-fairs. (Less)
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author
Jusufi, Valmir LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVM23 20131
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Key words: European Union, Kosovo, Serbia, foreign policy, external political impact, dip-lomatic means, accession perspective, conditionality, state-building.
language
English
id
3798621
date added to LUP
2013-07-01 13:06:26
date last changed
2013-07-01 13:06:26
@misc{3798621,
  abstract     = {{Abstract

The notion of external political impact, constitutes a useful approach in order to assess the EU as a distinctive foreign policy actor, one which, on occasion, does not necessarily need the same instruments as traditional nation-state do, to exert political influence. The present thesis applies this concept to measure the political impact of the EU foreign policies on disputes between Kosovo and Serbia. By taking an ‘outside-in’ approach, i.e. focusing on how a nonmember state absorbs the EU’s effects, this thesis aims is to measure the extent to which the EU foreign policy actions effectively influenced the behavior and policies of the disputing parties in Kosovo. The disciplined-configurative case study is adopted. Apart from secondary sources, official documents and reports were broadly used in this study. The overreaching result is that the EU exerted considerable or significant degree of political impact in three cases, thus causing changes on both conflicting parties and confirmed the EU’s clout. However, the EU’s foreign policy actions generated nil effects in one case, and marginal impact in one case, highlighting two facts: the EU’s own disarray adversely af-fected its ability to makes its presence felt, and, lack of ownership in the case of the EU-LEX was a result of its ‘constructive ambiguity’. The EU foreign policy actions successfully relied on diplomatic means, accession perspective incentives and conditionality. The empiri-cal evidence challenges the conventional wisdom, according to which, the military dimen-sion is viewed as a precondition to successfully exert political influence in international af-fairs.}},
  author       = {{Jusufi, Valmir}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Squaring the Circle? Assessing the EU foreign policy impact in Kosovo}},
  year         = {{2013}},
}