CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Molnár, Attila |
|---|---|
| Title | EU "External Action" at the United Nations |
| Summary | The thesis sets out to make an empirical contribution to the literature on European foreign policy, and the question of European voice on the international stage. European voice is defined as the degree to which the European Union (EU), a closely integrated polity in several domains, and an entity dedicated to effective multilateralism while being multilateral in itself, is capable of acting as a unified actor on the international stage, with a view to coupling its economic weight with political leverage. It is assumed that the further deepening of integration brought by the Lisbon Treaty should have a palpable effect on the dynamics of EU Member State voting in what is arguably the most universal of multilateral bodies, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), understood to be “the only forum in which a large number of states meet and vote on a regular basis on issues concerning the international community” . The study departs from this fundamental assumption and sets out to analyse the European voice in the United Nations, following the Lisbon Treaty. Building on existing scholarly literature; interviews with diplomats, and staff of the European External Action Service at two United Nations headquarters; as well as raw voting data, the above assumption is tested in a study comprising both qualitative and quantitative accounts. The study concludes that, in spite of an abundance of theoretical and practical arguments for increasing unity, actual voting in the UNGA does not provide any grounds for an overly hasty departure from a state-centric view of European foreign policy. |
| Supervisor | Pelinka, Anton |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/molnar_attila.pdf |
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