Research Projects

 Current Projects

• EUN-NET. Studying EU-UN Relations

Funding: European Union

Start: December 2016 (for 3 years)

Partners of Prof. Dr. Diana Panke and her team are the co-ordinators at Athens University of Economics and Business (Spyros Blavoukos, Dimitris Bourantonis, John Galariotis und Maria Gianniou), experts of London School of Economics and Political Science (Karen Smith), Leiden University (Madeleine Hosli), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Robert Kissack), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Jan Wouters und Edith Drieskens), Adelphi University (Katie Laatikainen), Université catholique de Louvain (Tom Delreux).

• "Towards an Increasing Regionalization of International Politics? Comparing the Development of External Competencies of Regional Organizations over Time"

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Diana Panke

Sponsor: Fritz-Thyssen Stiftung

Start: September 2016

Research Associate: Anna Katharina Starkmann (from 01. September 2016 on)

(from left to right: Diana Panke, Anna Starkmann)

In all geographical regions of the world, states cooperate in regional organizations (ROs). Although most ROs were initially created to foster economic cooperation between their respective member states, almost all of today’s 61 ROs are active beyond their borders as well. Case studies have illustrated that ROs are today important international actors contributing to international problem-solving across many policy areas (e.g. protection of endangered species, climate change). Nevertheless, there is no comparative study that examines to which extent the 61 ROs contribute to the regionalization of international politics and how this has changed over time. The project studies important preconditions for the ability of different ROs to act internationally. It sheds light on how the external policy mandates of the 61 ROs have changed in the period between 1945 and 2015 and across nine external policy areas and explains observed variation between ROs, across policy areas and over time. The project provides important insights into the dynamic evolution of ROs’ external policy mandates, accounts for the fact that some ROs are at the forefront of international politics while others are bystanders and explains why the regionalization of international politics varies across policy areas.

• "Foreign Policy as Public Policy? Exploring Promises and Pitfalls of Public Policy Approaches for Foreign Policy Analysis": Conference 3.-4. November 2016 in Heidelberg

Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Klaus Brummer (Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), Prof. Dr. Sebastian Harnisch (Universität Heidelberg), Dr. Kai Oppermann (University of Sussex), Prof. Dr. Diana Panke (Universität Freiburg

Sponsor: Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung

Abstract:

Historically speaking, the study of foreign policy has largely concerned the analysis of decision making processes, individual decision-makers and the effects of international structural factors, anarchy and institutions, and the interactions between these forces. Over the last decades, the erosion of statehood in many areas of the world and the integration of statehood in some has shifted the gravitational pull between hierarchy as the ordering principle in the domestic realm and anarchy in the international sphere. Although foreign policy analysts have started to address these tectonic currents in various ways, e.g. by examining intermestic politics in foreign trade policy, the consequences of this phenomenon for foreign policy analysis have not been considered systematically.

The conference will start out from the assumption that in order to capture these shifts and currents, the study of foreign policy can benefit from taking on board more systematically scholarship in public policy. This is the case, in particular, because foreign policy has become more similar to (and intertwined with) “ordinary” public policies. For once, foreign policy is no longer the more or less exclusive domain of the executive branch of government. With the increasing participation and/or influence of a range of actors such as parliaments, courts, non-governmental organizations, interest groups, etc., national governments no longer monopolize foreign policy and are even struggling to maintain their gatekeeping role. In addition to the plurality of actors that now characterizes foreign policy, allegedly “domestic” fields of public policy increasingly have external implications, particularly in a highly integrated region like Europe.

However, despite this blurring of real-world boundaries between the external and the internal, and hence foreign policy and domestic policies, a divide still persists regarding the analysis of policy-making processes and substantive policies in foreign affairs on the one hand and virtually all other public policies on the other hand. While foreign policy is still predominantly analyzed through the lens of analytical approaches developed in the field of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), “theories of the policy process” are typically used to make sense of developments in all other policy realms. Although public policy scholars dealing with the analysis of domestic policy fields, such as social and economic policy, interior affairs or environmental policy, use a broad array of heuristics, concepts and theories, the possible contribution of such approaches to the analysis of foreign policy has yet to be fully explored.

Against this background, the conference seeks to bridge the “analytical divide” between FPA and Public Policy (and thus Comparative Politics more generally). The presentations will provide novel insights into how and under which conditions foreign policy analysis can be enriched by ‘domestic realm’ public policy approaches, concepts and theories. By making use of analytical concepts developed in the respective “other” field, the conference aims at contributing to theoretical dialogue, integration and innovation across sub-disciplinary boundaries, thereby enhancing our understanding of policy-making processes and policies across issue areas (see the appendix for abstracts of the contributions).

With this purpose in mind, the conference will have presentations from leading international scholars as well as mid-career scholars who have already proven their ability to make crucial contributions to the field. In line with the objective of the conference to bring together public policy approaches and the analysis of foreign policy, participants include scholars from both research communities. 

The presentations will cover a selection of the most important domestic public policy approaches and examine their transferability and adaptability to foreign policy analysis. Specifically, the conference will have three parts. The first part of the conference will cover a range of actor-centered approaches (Multiple Streams, Advocacy Coalitions, Veto Players, Punctuated Equilibrium) while the second part will discuss more structural approaches (New Institutionalism, Network Analysis, Policy Diffusion, Policy Learning). The third part will have a summary discussion of the presentations and a dedicated forward planning session to identify promising next steps in bringing public policy and foreign policy research together. Thereby the conference seeks to establish how bridging the intra-disciplinary divide between public policy and foreign policy analysis can enrich foreign policy studies and shows how exactly foreign policy analysis can benefit from broadening its instruments for analysis. The presentations will also discuss under what conditions such a transfer is less promising due to the ‘sui generis’ character of foreign policy.

• "Nested Games: Regional Actors in Multilateral Negotiations"

Research has shown that regional organizations (ROs) are often striving to make their marks beyond their home turf, such as the European Union in its neighborhood policy. The project 'Nested Games: Regional Actors in Multilateral Negotiations' is also interested in the external 'actorness' of ROs, but with a different focus. It sheds light on the role of ROs in multilateral negotiations across a series of international organizations (IOs). With the increase in the number of ROs and IOs since the end of WWII and the overlapping membership of states in both, ROs turn de facto into actors in IOs. Examples include ASEAN in the International Labour Organization (ILO) concerning unemployment insurance issues or Mercosur supporting the initiative for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary in the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Thus, the project draws on multilevel governance approaches to shed light on the phenomenon of the regionalization of multilateral negotiations. Based on a broad range of different ROs and IOs and based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods it analyzes how actively ROs participate in IO negotiations and how influential they are in shaping international norms. Are some ROs more active than others and are some IOs especially prone to RO activity and why? Under which conditions can ROs exert influence over international norms although they are not usually members of IOs? 

 Publications Prof. Dr. Diana Panke