Field-level CFSP: EU diplomatic cooperation in third countries

Research into the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has traditionally been restricted to procedural studies of cooperation taking place at an intergovernmental level within Europe and/or to case studies involving intervention (or the lack of it!) in well-known global flashpoints. As a result, there remains a gap in our knowledge about the more mundane, but arguably just as significant, cooperation between EU states at the diplomatic level in third countries - cooperation which arguably contributes to the kinds of shared identification and spillovers promoted by transactionalist and neo-functionalist approaches to integration. This paper describes and presents findings from a project which studies diplomatic cooperation in several countries of varying size. It attempts - using fieldwork conducted in Washington DC, Kuala Lumpur, Canberra and Wellington - to portray and develop explanations of current progress. It explores, for example, whether enthusiasm for and the extent of cooperation varies a) according to member-state size and/or the holder of the presidency, b) with regard to particular issues, and c) according to the nature and preferences of the host country; it also looks at the role of the European Commission delegation. It concludes by looking at the obstacles to greater integration in the senses conceived of by both transactionalists and neo- functionalists in this neglected but not necessarily insignificant dimension of the CFSP.