Project Description

This research project is motivated by the question: How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) influence the institutional design of regional international organizations? For several decades, the EU has been the most active and powerful promoter of regional integration around the world. It negotiates cooperation and trade agreements with regional organizations, engages in interregional political dialogues and lends financial and technical assistance to strengthen regional institutions. At the same time, the EU is widely considered the pioneer and most successful example of regional economic integration in the world today, notwithstanding the current Euro-crisis. Yet, there is little research that systematically assesses the EU’s influence on regional integration abroad.

This research project therefore has three aims. First, it conceptualizes the ways in which the EU influences regional institutional design by drawing on organizational theory in sociology. Second, it develops a series of testable propositions on the conditions under which such influence is likely to matter. Third, it tests these propositions based on a mixed methods design that combines large-N quantitative analysis and several in-depth case studies. This project not only seeks to advance our theoretical understanding of the impact of EU foreign policy, the drivers of regional integration processes, and the design of international institutions, it also has major policy relevance. It promises to reveal whether one of the EU’s main foreign policy objectives, to which substantial resources have been dedicated over the past decades, has in fact been achieved, and which of the EU’s policy tools have been most relevant in this regard. Moreover, it promises insights into the politically important question whether the EU’s attractiveness as a model of regional integration has undergone changes over time, including during the latest Euro-crisis.