IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eiq/eileqs/17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Normative Evolution in Europe: Small States and Republican Peace

Author

Listed:
  • Kostas A. Lavdas

Abstract

Understanding today’s EU requires a prism which is attentive to the interactions between the polity-building and world-inhabiting facets of the emerging polity. We cannot separate developing a theory of the EU as a polity from determining its placement in the world. Norms of cooperation become crucial in this endeavour: as they search for credible tools to interpret and master a changing Europe in a changing world, actors distil their experience in close and repeated cooperation with a view to enhancing their knowledge of and influence over complex games of advanced hyper-dependence. The normative underpinnings of today’s European construction can be approached in three steps. First, drawing inspiration from Thucydides, we demonstrate that the norms that count are neither religious in origin nor based primarily on custom and tradition. Next, we point to the significance of small states in norm development by explaining that the norms in question have been influenced by the practices and rationalizations associated with small-states behaviour, adaptability and survival. Finally, we suggest that the norms in question have evolved in interaction with a powerful current in Euro-Atlantic political thought and sensibility: republicanism. The paper identifies two main sets of norms in today’s EU: one stemming from previous experiences within the international system and the other developing with the new polity-in-the-making.

Suggested Citation

  • Kostas A. Lavdas, 2010. "Normative Evolution in Europe: Small States and Republican Peace," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 17, European Institute, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:eiq:eileqs:17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/LEQS/LEQSPaper17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tito Boeri, 2010. "Immigration to the Land of Redistribution," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 651-687, October.
    2. Anders Wivel, 2005. "The Security Challenge of Small EU Member States: Interests, Identity and the Development of the EU as a Security Actor," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 393-412, June.
    3. Elman, Miriam Fendius, 1995. "The Foreign Policies of Small States: Challenging Neorealism in Its Own Backyard," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 171-217, April.
    4. Ian Manners, 2002. "Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 235-258, June.
    5. Finnemore, Martha & Sikkink, Kathryn, 1998. "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 887-917, October.
    6. Keohane, Robert O., 1986. "Reciprocity in international relations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 1-27, January.
    7. Orwin, Clifford, 1989. "Piety, Justice, and the Necessities of War: Thucydides' Delian Debate," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 233-239, March.
    8. Erik Jones, 2009. "They Have No Idea... Decision-making and Policy Change in the Global Financial Crisis," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 4, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Viggo Jakobsen, 2009. "Small States, Big Influence: The Overlooked Nordic Influence on the Civilian ESDP," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 81-102, January.
    2. May-Britt Stumbaum, 2015. "The diffusion of norms in security-related fields: views from China, India and the EU," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 331-347, September.
    3. Tanja A. Börzel & Thomas Risse, 2009. "Diffusing (Inter-) Regionalism - The EU as a Model of Regional Integration," KFG Working Papers p0007, Free University Berlin.
    4. Wolfgang Wagner, 2017. "Liberal Power Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(6), pages 1398-1414, November.
    5. Michael Keating, 2010. "Second Round Reform. Devolution and constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 15, European Institute, LSE.
    6. Kostas A. Lavdas, 2010. "Normative Evolution in Europe: Small States and Republican Peace," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 7, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    7. Roter Petra, 2015. "International-local Linkages in Multistakeholder Partnerships Involved in Reconciliation, Inter-communal Bridgebuilding and Confidence-building," Croatian International Relations Review, Sciendo, vol. 21(72), pages 139-166, February.
    8. Waltraud Schelkle, 2009. "Good Governance in Crisis or a Good Crisis for Governance? A Comparison of the EU and the US," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 6, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    9. Chiara De Franco & Christoph O. Meyer & Karen E. Smith, 2015. "‘Living by Example?’ The European Union and the Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 994-1009, September.
    10. Christopher M. Dent, 2021. "Trade, Climate and Energy: A New Study on Climate Action through Free Trade Agreements," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-30, July.
    11. William Outhwaite, 2010. "Europe at 21: Transitions and Transformations since 1989," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 8, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    12. Silja Keva, 2017. "Japan in the Asia-Europe parliamentary dialogue: domestic actors on the international stage," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 283-298, September.
    13. Gerard Delanty, 2010. "The European Heritage from a Critical Cosmopolitan Perspective," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 9, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    14. Catherine Locatelli & Mehdi Abbas & Sylvain Rossiaud, 2015. "Russia and China hydrocarbon relations A building block toward international hydrocarbon regulation?," Working Papers hal-01246346, HAL.
    15. Moosung Lee, 2012. "A step as normative power: the EU’s human rights policy towards North Korea," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 41-56, May.
    16. Laura Allison-Reumann, 2017. "ASEAN and human rights: challenges to the EU’s diffusion of human rights norms," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 39-54, March.
    17. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:787-810 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Erickson, Jennifer L., 2008. "Normative power and EU arms transfer policy: A theoretical critique and empirical test [Normative Macht und die EU-Waffenlieferungspolitik: Eine theoretische Kritik und ein empirischer Test]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2008-301, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    19. Michael Keating, 2009. "Second Round Reform. Devolution and constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 5, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    20. Kenneth Ka-Lok Chan, 2020. "Power through trade: opportunities and constraints of the European Union’s norm entrepreneurship—the case of Hong Kong," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 413-427, December.
    21. Tanja A. Börzel, 2011. "Comparative Regionalism - A New Research Agenda," KFG Working Papers p0028, Free University Berlin.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eiq:eileqs:17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Katjana Gattermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eilseuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.