This study analyzes the foreign policy of the European Union during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. This series of crises coincided with the European Union’s creation of formal mechanisms so it could harmonize and create foreign policy positions between its member-states. I study the EU’s involvement in three specific crises during this period: the secession crisis of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, the Bosnian War of 1994 – 95, and the Kosovo War of 1999.
The focus here is the process of foreign policy decision-making within the EU. The conceptual framework employed is the “ultimate decision unit” proposed by Margaret Hermann and Charles Hermann, specifically their third decision unit composed of multiple autonomous actors (MAA). Government decisions resulting from the MAA unit are the products of negotiations between separate and autonomous individuals, groups, and coalitions in a system in which no single actor can force compliance on the others and no overarching authoritative body exists. EU foreign policy decisions are indeed the result of such negotiations between autonomous or sovereign actors thus justifying the use of the MAA model.
Although the MAA model is proposed for studying national foreign policy making, my dissertation demonstrates how EU decision-making during the Yugoslav wars fits the same pattern of decision-making depicted in the MAA model. Thus I conclude that EU foreign policy can be studied using some models of foreign policy analysis. Regarding the process of EU foreign policy making, I conclude that where there is greater initial agreement among the members of the EU’s ultimate decision unit about the EU’s proper role in a particular event and where there is agreement about the attendant behaviors for that role, the EU will be more successful in articulating and implementing a common foreign policy. Where there is less initial agreement among the decision-actors about the EU’s role and behavior, the less successful the European Union will be in articulating and implementing any common foreign policy.