The European Union as a diplomatic actor
The major aim of the volume is to scrutinise the scope, character and impact of the European Union as a diplomatic actor. The contributors focus on the processes, policies and outcomes of the EU across key foreign policy fields in the post Lisbon era, such as security, human rights, trade, finance and environmental politics. They provide a comprehensive examination of institutional developments and the EU's responses to internal and external challenges in the context of international politics and global diplomacy. Part 1 of the book comprises a set of authoritatively written chapters on the main capacities, each written by a team of well known experts. These alone are worth the price of the book and would enhance many an undergraduate reading list. Part 2 examines how the capacities are deployed across a range of policy areas, such as the environment, the welfare state and infrastructure. The chapters in Part 3 then explore how policy making activities that go beyond states (i.e. interand transnational) extend, expand, reduce and/or undermine state capacities. For an edited collection, the coherence of the whole volume is strong but there are a few loose ends. For example, Chapter 6 'management capacity' appears to add a fifth capacity to the four listed in Chapter 1. The policy challenges covered in Part 2 do not map onto the ones introduced in Chapter 1. And more could have been done in Chapter 1 to introduce and problematize the (intriguing) themes that eventually emerge in Part 3. Given the identity of the editors and contributors, it is hardly a surprise to learn that the book concludes that the state is and will continue to be hugely important in modern life. If that headline finding is not particularly earth shattering, the fine detail most certainly is thought provoking and worthy of further exploration. For example, in their concluding chapter the editors discuss how states are being simultaneously hollowed out and filled in; that administrative capacities are highly differentiated; that mixing and matching them is important but fiendishly difficult; and that policy makers should resist the temptation to think in terms of single rather than holistic solutions. I hope that this book stimulates academics and practitioners to think more deeply about what the state can and cannot be legitimately expected to deliver in these most uncertain of times.