Research Papers

As the European Union and its CFSP/CSDP often have a significant impact on a great number of people, like in cases of military or civilian missions, it is equally significant to understand the factors that shape these policy provisions. While the paper does not disregard rational choice and "national interests" of Member States, the paper relies on institutionalist and constructivist assumptions and focuses on discourse as an important factor that influences the policymaking process. The thesis will assess the role of non-elected actors (representatives of member states in committees, working groups and agencies) of the CSDP policymaking process on setting the discourse of EU's foreign policies, a discourse, which is later used on higher levels of policymaking, like negotiation rounds and at the voting table. These actors are important because they are the ones that draft policies, materialize them in the form of written text, and thus set the discourse on a given topic. These actors are also important because of the nature of their appointment. While decisions are de jure made at the level of the Council of Ministers where democratically elected government officials ideally represent their respective national public concerns, de facto the decisions of policies are made at a lower level of policy-making, by the aforementioned non-elected actors. These actors hold the policy formulation and policy drafting powers and control the discourse on a given topic and, according to constructivist and new institutionalist assumptions, have a great impact on the decision making process and policy outcomes. The paper will present empirical findings and conceptual concerns in relation to the analysis of two EU missions, EUPM Bosnia and EUTM Somalia.