Pragmatic Foreign Policy in the Wider European Area: Managing Power Differentials in a Pluralist Society of States

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1 Pragmatic Foreign Policy in the Wider European Area: Managing Power Differentials in a Pluralist Society of States Presentation in the workshop The great power mismanagement: the Russian-Georgian war and ots implications, Central European University, 14 March 2009, Budapest Pami Aalto Jean Monnet Professor Department of Political Science and International Relations/Jean Monnet Centre University of Tampere, Finland 1

2 Failures of great power management in the wider European society Wider European society connotes in terms of (i) geography: area from the Atlantic to the Urals, Black Sea and partly the Caspian; (ii) formal institutions: the OSCE/CoE map; (iii) primary institutions Sovereignty (formally recognised but some question marks in the FSU) Balance of power (impact of NATO enlargements aims as sovereignty support); International law (Kosovo, South Ossetia peacekeepers!); Diplomacy (insufficient when severe conflicts along other institutions Territoriality and respect of borders (FSU area problematic) Great power management (remains the rule but FYR and FSU problem areas) Market (solidarist pressure for pluralist society) FIN EU INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY GEORGIA RUSSIA 2

3 Role of small powers and case for pragmatic foreign policy Failures of great power management hurt most existentially small powers by contrast, implications for great powers themselves are temporary and policy area specific Small states vulnerable along most primary institution dimensions (the market being a slight deviation) Access to European foreign policy and other bandwagoning depend on position vis-à-vis EU and wider European international society Thus they, especially if located in imperial borderlands, need alternative practices balancing great power led international society Potential practices historically include (alongside bandwagoning) neutrality, non-alignment and finlandisation all of which can all be discussed under the label of pragmatic foreign policy 3

4 What is pragmatism / pragmatic foreign policy? Colloquially: operating not on the basis of established principles, but rather on what works (Little 2009) As IR: turn to practices borrowed from other fields; beyond theoretical dichotomies but rather dialogue/constellation of concepts and theories; historicity of action and betterment of world (Bauer & Brighi 2009) Philosophically: truth consists not in correspondence with facts but in successful coherence with (everyday) experience (Little 2009); not just ontology and epistemology but acting + analytical and methodological eclecticism as we cannot wait to know the truth (Kratochwil 2009) Roles: -Neutrality -Non-alignment - finlandisation /trading of external to (some) internal sovereignty (between suzerainty and dominion) -Bridge-builder/mediator/ physician in IR Pragmatic foreign policy: -policy actor is what it does ; identity formation as a result of regularities in action and historical constitution -combining realism and idealism: realisation of ideas and norms within the confines of time and place -mutual constitution of actors/competitors/conflict parties -continuity and thus historical trust-building (Rytövuori-Apunen 2007; 2008) -communication and dialogue, sensitivity to the other and knowledge of the rules of the game - Honest broker vs. true believer (Bicchi 2008) 4

5 Pragmatic foreign policy and types of international society Pragmatism thrives best in a traditional pluralist interstate society? Whilst small states pragmatic foreign policy builds on the institution of sovereignty (its maintenance), it concomitantly must accommodate a degree of interdependence and/or boundaries that are not clear-cut along, for example, economic, legal, institutional and geopolitical lines Pragmatism not necessarily a conscious foreign policy choice but rather a historically conditioned strategy of manoeuvring In contrast to Finnish-Russian case, in e.g. Georgian- Russian relations the typical historical conditions for the emergence of pragmatist foreign policy may at best only be in the process of formation (empire vs. competing empires vs. pluralist society of great powers vs. pluralist society of multiple independencies Possible empirical cases: Finland & Russia during the Cold War era Finland & Russia during the post-cold war era Northern dimension (Russia in the post-cold War era) EU-Russia relations Energy dialogue 5