Understanding the EU’s Strategic Partnerships with Brazil, India and South Africa : Strategic alliances forming part of the strategy of cooperating while competing and Social relationships as foreign policy tools of social power

Abstract

This thesis analyses and conceptualises the EU’s strategic partnerships with Brazil, India and South Africa between 2003 and 2010. It understands the underlying nature of a strategic partnership as well as the interaction of the strategic partners in the three respective cases and from a comparative perspective. In this thesis, the EU’s strategic partnerships with Brazil, India and South Africa are understood as strategic alliances and social relationships between an established/traditional (external) actor (EU) and emerging regional powers (Brazil, India and South Africa). The study argues that the EU’s strategic partnerships with Brazil, India and South Africa are strategic alliances forming part of the strategy of cooperating while competing and social relationships, which are foreign policy tools of social power, particularly reward power (including positive incentives) and legitimate power (legitimate position power and legitimate authority). Strategic partnerships are based on self-interest and are both status/condition as well as process.

In this thesis, the EU’s strategic partnerships with Brazil, India and South Africa are understood as strategic alliances and social relationships. Strategic partnerships are both status/condition and process. Based on self-interest, strategic alliances between the EU as an established/traditional (external) power and Brazil, India and South Africa as emerging regional powers form part of the strategy of cooperating while competing. The partners cooperate in order to coordinate and ideally adapt their (foreign) policies. They try to engage each other at several levels involving socialisation efforts. Yet, the EU also tries to manage the rise of emerging regional powers. But strategic partners also compete for power (status). Whereas the three countries try to increase power, the EU aims to maintain power. Furthermore, the strategic partners strive to demonstrate power (‘prestige’). Moreover, all strategic partners follow status recognition strategies. Strategic partnerships are also social relationships representing foreign policy tools of social power. The agents are structurally-grounded and socially-positioned within the international state society informing their social statuses and social group memberships. Thereby, the respective partners possess reward power and legitimate power (potential), informing their power to reward with status (and) recognition. In this context, the EU socially constructs an exclusive strategic partnership-brand signifying its strategy of social labelling.

This dissertation engages in middle-range theory-building. It builds an abductively-derived conceptual model consisting of theoretical building blocks. Based on a scientific realist meta-theoretical fundament and realist social theory, the conceptual model follows a morphogenetic approach (Archer), which sees agency and structure in a dual relationship and works from pre-existing structures and socially interacting agents. The morphogenetic approach is combined with concept-building of a family resemblance model focusing on the basic and secondary levels (Goertz; Goertz/Mahoney) uncovering the underlying dimensions as well as similarities among the three cases of the strategic partnerships. (Limited) neoliberal, neo-/realist and social constructivist IR-modules are combined via an analytic eclectic approach. Furthermore, the study is enriched by insights from international business and management as well as sociology, which both provide innovative perspectives and knowledge to the understanding of the EU’s strategic partnerships. The study’s conceptual model is not only theoretically derived but also empirically embedded: it builds on extensive data from qualitative expert interviewing in Brazil, Brussels, India and South Africa.