Resistance to EU integration? Norm collision in the coordination of development aid

Abstract

This article contributes to the contemporary foreign policy debate about how norms influence policymakers' behaviour. Hypotheses of norm-driven action are frequently dismissed when norms are inconsistently followed. However, values may collide, which might provide an explanation for such apparent inconsistencies. Drawing on recent constructivist literature on the contestation of norms, I discuss why integration in EU development policy was resisted. I ask if resistance was due to the wish to maintain national control over policies or if the socalled like-minded countries' resistance was due to a conflict of normative concerns regarding how to best achieve coordination. The study contributes by developing an empirically relevant hypothesis of norm collision which lends itself well for theoretical generalisation. In addition, the article provides new empirical knowledge about EU development policy by identifying the tension between securing country ownership and donor involvement as a crucial factor contributing to resistance to EU integration.

Global Justice and Aid Effectiveness: Reforms of the European Union’s Development Policy

“…I draw on the GLOBUS conception of justice as impartiality to conceptualise central elements of the EU's development policy, and further on the concepts of justice as mutual recognition and justice as non-domination to understand the like-minded's resistance to the EU's approach. In line with recent critical constructivist research on norm contestation, I emphasise the role of competing ideas about how to counter the dominating practices that follows from the increasingly complex system of global aid distribution (Krook & True, 2012;Puetter & Wiener, 2007;Saltnes, 2019;Wiener, 2019). While the goal is agreed upon, I show that there are different interpretations among EU member states regarding how aid effectiveness reforms should be constructed.…”

“…However, it is less convincing in accounting for why, after a period of resistance and reluctance, the likeminded countries have accepted the EU's proposals. Hence, in order to fully understand the like-minded's initial resistance and subsequent acceptance, this paper's starting point is the hypothesis that competing ideas of how to achieve aid effectiveness contributed to the like-minded's resistance (Saltnes, 2019).…”

“…I am also grateful for comments by participants at a GLOBUS workshop in Oslo (2018) and the workshop 'Trade, development and global justice' at Wits University, Johannesburg (2017). This paper draws on an earlier publication in the Journal of European Integration (Saltnes, 2019) the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands) have taken a central role in establishing aid effectiveness reforms (Elgström & Delputte, 2016;Olsen, 2013;Selbervik & Nygaard, 2006). However, the like-minded countries have also resisted aid effectiveness reforms proposed by the Commission in the EU context.…”

Criminal accountability at what cost? Norm conflict, UN peace operations and the International Criminal Court

“…Acharya, 2004; Zimmermann, 2016) has identified several strategies that states use to address such (vertical) norm conflicts. Further research has been undertaken with regard to the question of how states respond to two conflicting international norms (horizontal norm conflicts) (Peltner, 2017; Saltnes, 2019). However, there is little literature so far on how international organisations (IOs) respond when they encounter such horizontal norm conflicts (Gholiagha et al, 2020).…”

Towards a Functional Division of Labour in EU development cooperation post-2020.

“…There is already quite considerable literature on coordination and aid effectiveness in EU development policy (Aldassoro, Nunenkamp and Thiele 2010, Nunenkamp, Ohler and Thiele 2013, Carbone 2013, 2017; Olivie and Perez 2015, Delputte and Soderbaum 2012, Delputte and Orbie 2014, Furness and Vollmer 2013, Galeazzi, Helly, and Krätke 2013, Helly et al 2015, Saltnes 2019, Kruger and Steingass 2019. However, much less has been written specifically about DoL (Murle 2007, Shultz 2007, Roeske 2007, Hartman 2011 and the role played by the European Commission (EC) within this framework.…”