Simon Schunz's research while affiliated with The College of Europe and other places
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Publications (35)
In December 2019, the European Commission released its strategy for the European Union (EU), the European Green Deal (EGD), which perceives the ‘commitment to tackling climate and environmental-related challenges’ as ‘this generation’s defining task’. It intends to ‘transform [the EU’s] economy and society to put it on a more sustainable path’, and...
The European Union (EU) has increasingly become a foreign policy actor in its own right, sparking the emergence of EU External Action Studies (EU EAS). Although this thriving field at the intersection of EU Studies and International Relations has gradually matured, the interaction of EU EAS with Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) has so far remained lim...
In recent times, the European Union’s external engagement has expanded in originally internal policy areas. This process is particularly intriguing in areas where the EU possesses only supplementary competences. Examining the case of EU higher education policy, this contribution sets out to understand and explain EU external engagement in such area...
The European Union (EU) is widely considered as a ‘leader’ in global environmental politics. Over the past forty years, it has gradually adopted a corpus of primary/secondary environmental law allowing it to become the strongest regional environmental protection regime in the world. As a global actor, the EU attempts to export this acquis, followin...
Climate change has turned the Arctic simultaneously into an environmentally highly fragile space and a region offering manifold economic opportunities. The notion of ‘Arctic Paradox’ aptly captures the trade-off between environmental protection needs and economic prospects. We investigate how the European Union has positioned itself regarding this...
This book closely scrutinizes the individual and collective roles played by China, the EU and the USA in contemporary world politics. Examining the three actors’ respective strategic and policy positions on and behaviour towards the flux of the contemporary global order, the analysis focuses on three major issues and challenges: foreign and securit...
In the early twenty-first century, environmental matters have become subject to high politics, tackled in complex global contexts. In such contexts, effectively dealing with environmental challenges requires a geopolitically informed environmental foreign policy strategy. This article examines whether, to what extent and for what reasons the Europe...
Despite its increasing importance for European integration, there remains a lack of scholarly attention to the growth of EU external action in originally internal policy areas. This article advances a comprehensive framework for understanding and explaining the emergence of EU external engagement in such areas. It combines insights from two sets of...
This paper examines how, to what extent and why the EU engages in cultural diplomacy vis-à-vis the US. While providing an empirical review of and conceptual reflection on the current state of the EU's (including key member states') efforts at employing cultural diplomacy vis-à-vis the US, the paper also strives to explain the forms of this activity...
The Arctic has increasingly become the subject of strategic debates, prompting numerous actors – including the European Union (EU) – to develop Arctic strategies. Importantly, these strategies need to address the ‘Arctic paradox’, that is, the trade-off between pursuing the economic opportunities arising from an increasingly ice-free Arctic and pre...
The Arctic has increasingly become the subject of strategic debates, prompting numerous actors – including the European Union (EU) – to develop Arctic strategies. Importantly, these strategies need to address the ‘Arctic paradox’, that is, the trade-off between pursuing the economic opportunities arising from an increasingly ice-free Arctic and pre...
Science diplomacy represents a relatively novel field of EU external action. This contribution provides a better understanding of the under-researched development of this policy domain, asking how and why the EU has extended the scope of its external activities in the scientific area. To answer these questions, it conducts an analysis of EU policy-...
In much of the literature on global climate politics, and notably on the United Nations (UN) climate regime, the European Union (EU) has long been considered as a lead actor in efforts to combat climate change (Gupta and Grubb, 2000; Oberthür, 2009). Even its apparent marginalisation at the 2009 Copenhagen conference of the parties (COP) has left t...
As analysts of real-world politics, political scientists reflect upon the changing nature of a social reality that is in quasi-constant flux. Since processes of ‘political transformation inevitably call […] into question the available concepts and categories through which that transformation can be understood’, this scholarly activity has to involv...
This article analyzes the historical dynamics of the relationship between China and the European Union (EU) in global climate governance. The evolution of this relationship is traced through three time periods: the early days of the United Nations (UN) climate regime (1992–2001), the road to the Copenhagen summit (2001–2009) and the post-Copenhagen...
This article discusses the relations between the different layers of government in Belgium with regard to a typical multi-level issue, i.e. climate change. It addresses the question to which degree the characteristics of Belgian federalism shape those intergovernmental relations. Three major characteristics are identified: the constitutionally ‘dua...
Ever since the inception of the United Nations climate regime in the early 1990s, the European Union has aspired to play a leading part in the global combat against climate change. Based on an analysis of how the Union has developed its foreign climate policy to fulfil this role over the past two decades, the paper sets out to identify the reasons...
This edited volume set out to explore the position(s) of the European Union (EU or Union) in multilateral global governance arrangements under the UN umbrella in two central domains of EU foreign policy activity: human rights and the environment. In so doing, it parted from several assumptions about (i) the EU’s participation in governance fora in...
After almost two decades of active implication in the United Nations (UN) climate change regime, the European Union’s (EU) engagement in this domain of global environmental politics has become widely considered as emblematic of its participation in global multilateral governance generally.2 In this time span, the internal and external parameters fo...
Within the span of a few decades, the European Union (EU or Union) has made a remarkable ascent as a global player, evolving from a comparatively marginal actor in world affairs to a resourceful and widely recognized foreign policy force in its own right. This has been most recently reaffirmed with the adoption of United Nations General Assembly (U...
Chapter 1 underscored the growing importance of the EU’s engagement in global multilateral fora under the UN umbrella. This tendency, emblematically reflected in the two influential EU policy documents of 2003 – the Commission communication on ‘The EU and the UN: partners in effective multilateralism’ and the European Security Strategy (European Co...
This contribution examines the driving factors behind the European Union's activism in global climate politics since the mid‐1990s. Two alternatives are considered: norms and interests. Norms underlying the EU's stance include its belief in multilateralism, sustainable development and the precautionary principle. Interests comprise economic opportu...
In previous editions of the Journal of Contemporary European Research, we reported on the set-up and progress of the interdisciplinary research project “The European Union and Global Multilateral Governance” (see Vol. 4, No. 1; Vol. 5, No. 1). This third and final research note presents some of the key-results of the project and suggests future are...
This is the second of a series of research notes articles dealing with a research project funded by the University of Leuven. The first part was published in the JCER Volume 4 Issue 1 and third part will be published in a future issue of the JCER.
In recent years, the European Union (EU) has increasingly been perceived as an important actor in multilateral institutions at the global level, both within and beyond the United Nations (UN) system. Research on this new topic of EU and global multilateral governance has been conducted by both legal scholars and political scientists, predominantly...
Citations
... Cabe mencionar que aún no hay consenso sobre si la UE representa o no a un actor en el sistema internacional. El concepto actorness se ha operacionalizado de diferentes formas para contestar preguntas sobre elementos o situaciones que limitan o promueven la capacidad de la UE en el exterior y en una amplia gama de políticas (Batzella, 2022;Bretherton y Vogler, 2008;Conceição-Heldt y Meunier, 2014;Delreux, 2014;Gerards, Schunz y Damro, 2021;Klaus y Teebken, 2020;Mattheis, 2017). ...
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... At aggregate level, EU energy-related activities thus continue to exploit Arctic fossil fuels in ways that contradict its aforementioned climate diplomacy efforts and are detrimental for NHN in the region and globally. Additionally, economic growth in logistics, cruise tourism, fisheries and mineral resources, sectors that depend on shipping, is to continue, and EU member states are expectant, as evidenced in their official documents on the Arctic (De Botselier et al. 2018). Of these sectors, the EU only has an exclusive competence in the conservation of marine biological resources under its common fisheries policy (Art. ...
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... However, the proposition also rests on the less demanding argument that 'law is the basis for establishing the EU as an autonomous international actor; that the development of norms at a global as well as a bilateral and regional level are among its objectives; and that it seeks to pursue its interests through normative means: through legal instruments, international law and international organisations' (Cremona and Scott 2019: 67, see also Vatsov 2020). In this latter argument, EU elites can be understood as 'networks of policy entrepreneurs' whose power projection is highly shaped by legal opportunity structures, although their underlying motives can be based on both ideas and interest (Schunz and Damro 2020). ...
... All in all, as a vital component of India's overall foreign policy agenda, climate change has multifaceted connotations and it is imperative to decode all the aspects of climate change as a geopolitical construct involving power hierarchies, strategic alignments, tactical coalitions, power blocs; a development issue characterized by economic hardships and poverty; a cultural norm associated with human interest in assimilating normative values like cultural and civilizational elements; a vulnerability or predicament or crisis or challenge; an international leadership opportunity or an issue with domestic socio-economic leverage (Belis et al., 2018). ...
... Commission President Barroso, for example, stressed the importance of 'safeguard[ing] future generations on this planet' (Barroso 2009a, 2) and 'the need to support the poorest, the most vulnerable in their fight against climate change' (Barroso 2009b, 2). The EU's talk after COP17 also shows a consideration of the Union's normative commitments (Schunz 2019). Figure 1 shows that especially after COP17 in 2012 the Union increasingly emphasises not only a rational façade but also a reputational façade. ...
... The three science diplomacy instruments in the All Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance support multi-national collaboration on scientific research and potentially also the national interests of the countries involved. For example, the European Commission has been very successful in pushing forward its views, strategies and policies at the international arena, utilizing science diplomacy tools to pursue its goals in the Atlantic (European Union, 2019;López de San Román and Schunz, 2018). European interests in the Atlantic go beyond than acquiring evidence on essential natural assets (European Union, 2020). ...
... Traditional explanations for the variation in EU status focus on internal and/or external, legal and/or political factors (e.g. Jørgensen and Wessel 2011, Hoffmeister 2007, Wouters et al. 2008, Gehring et al. 2013). Some stress the importance of the division of competences within the EU (internal, legal) for the Union's status in IOs. ...
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... Moreover, non-state actors' involvement is not limited to indirect modes like lobbying and advocacy anymore, but these actors are increasingly included in decision-making structures. Overall, as Keukeleire and Schunz (2015, p. 69f) rightly point out, the situation presented by the changed, multi-layered foreign-policy landscape is indeed far more complicated that Putnamian "two-level games" (Putnam, 1988) would suggest. ...
Reference: Non-State Actors and Foreign Policy
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... conditioned by the knowledge-sharing behavior of states that can develop "green technology" (Sovacool and Björn-Ola, 2016). In the same context, Simon Schunz questions whether the science is the bargaining tool in providing green development or acquiring more power (Schunz, 2015)? Hence, do international institutions represent global, i.e. common interest? ...
... Dupont, Oberthür, & Biedenkopf, 2018), albeit mostly with respect to specific moments or negotiations. For instance, Schunz (2012) notes the increased importance placed by the EU on the G8 following the US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, with the UK placing climate considerations on the agenda. In 2007, the EU created the Global Climate Change Alliance to assist vulnerable developing countries to respond to climate change (Lightfoot, 2015). ...
