Subject or Object? SINo-American competition and European sTRAtegic autonomy

Project Information

SINATRA

Grant agreement ID: 101045227

DOI

10.3030/101045227

EC signature date 16 June 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 726 250,00

EU contribution

€ 1 726 250,00

Coordinated by

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SINATRA (Subject or Object? SINo-American competition and European sTRAtegic autonomy)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The intensifying great power competition between the United States and China has arguably become the structuring vector in international politics. This project examines to what extent the European Union (EU) is able to autonomously make decisions regarding its relations with the United States and China. The key innovation is to present a comprehensive theory to explain to what extent and under what circumstances external or internal actors have the upper hand in informing European policy choices in Sino-American competition. Assuming the existence of a correlation between the EU’s (degree of) unity and autonomy, the latter is depicted as a relative and contingent concept. The main hypothesis is that the EU’s degree of autonomy vis-à-vis China and the United States will be high in those policy areas where it enjoys exclusive competences, moderate where it has shared competences, and low where the competences rest with the member states. I expect this to happen despite the high degree of “issue linkage” (Haas, 1980; McGinnis, 1986) between the different areas of EU external policy; despite the fact that the United States and China will try to exploit Europe’s dependence in some areas to extract concessions in others; and despite the fact that the EU itself will try to build on its competences in some areas (e.g. trade) to expand its clout in others (e.g. foreign and security policy). SINATRA pushes back against the conventional wisdom that the EU is either poised to become an autonomous subject or condemned to the status of mere object or battleground in Sino-American competition, by arguing that the EU will be subject and object at the same time, and unpacking the mechanics of that tension. The project draws on mixed methods research, combining quantitative analysis of European, American and Chinese voting patterns and public discourse (i.e. through the use of content analysis software and manual coding) in a variety of international organisations and debates.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SINATRA's main scientific breakthroughs relate to theoretical innovation and data gathering and treatment. Theoretical development has been the main focus of the project during its first stage. SINATRA zooms in on the interaction between external wedging and internal binding. While those are well-established concepts, the project goes beyond the question of how great powers try to divide a target – conceived as a unitary actor – from another great power or otherwise “bind” it to themselves. Instead, SINATRA zooms in on US and Chinese efforts to influence individual European countries, the impact such efforts have on European unity, and how powerful intra-European actors try to bind these targets together and preserve European unity in the face of external pressure.

By gathering a database of 700 national strategic documents, over 1000 WTO-related decisions, and leveraging existing data on UN general assembly voting, SINATRA has assembled the most extensive and comprehensive set of quantitative data to identify European alignment patterns in US-China competition. So far, research on this topic has been qualitative. No analysis had systematically arranged and compared a group of states or offered a consistent set of measurements for alignment. This limitation impedes replicability and generalizability, which this database aims to remedy.

Four ‘capstone’ articles contribute to setting out the theoretical foundations of the project. The first article (published, Review of International Studies) examines how great powers cope with states or actors who “hedge” or elude taking sides in great power competition. The second article (published, Journal of European Public Policy) examines the balance between cooperation and conflict in Franco-German relations. The third article (R&R, Contemporary Security Policy) looks at the various levels of analysis in wedge strategies (inter-state, sub-state, transnational). The fourth article (under review, European Journal of International Relations) examines how “secondary” states and actors draw on different types of binding strategies to balance autonomy and security. Several additional articles advance the project’s objectives.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By focusing on how a divider seeks to manipulate a target’s external and internal alignment, SINATRA offers a simple and yet more comprehensive conceptualization of wedge strategies, i.e. one that incorporates the sub-state dimension and pays attention to multiple levels of analysis and how they relate to each other.
The project challenges conventional wisdom associating secondary states either with “balancing” and “security seeking” or “hedging” and “autonomy seeking”. SINATRA posits that secondary states constantly seek to reconcile security and autonomy, and theorize how they do that. Through vertical and horizontal binding, respectively, balancing secondary states try to impose their reading of the security environment on their great power patron, and move from a dynamic of dependence to one of mutual dependence; whereas by investing in partnerships with other secondary states and institutions they also sought to minimize their dependence on their great power patron. In this manner, SINATRA adds a contribution to the alliance literature.