"To speak with one voice"? Europeanization in intergovernmental policy areas. The case of the European Political Cooperation (EPC), 1970-1981

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The research project analyzes the Europeanization of foreign policy as a result of changing decision-making processes, operational habits and perceptual patterns caused by the institutionalization of the European Political Cooperation (EPC) since the early 1970s. The two main questions of the research project are, on the one hand, if and to what extent the content, structures, operational habits and perceptual patterns of foreign policy in the European multi-level system have been changed by the development of new forms of foreign policy cooperation, intensified communication and new political actors within the institutional framework of the EPC; on the other hand, if and to what extent the intergovernmental cooperation within the EPC - contrary to the widely accepted opinion according to which the increasing intergovernmental cooperation among EC member state governments in the face of domestic opposition hindered further integration in the 1970s - has initialized non-intended integrational dynamics. The results of the research project are meant to contribute to the re-evaluation of inter- or transgovernmental policy areas in the process of European integration and to reassess, to what extent the concept of Europeanization is appropriate as an analytical framework for the history of the process of European integration. Thus, the research project contributes to the amplification of methodical approaches and issues as well as to the theoretical discourse in European integration historiography.