‘Doing good’ in the world? Reconsidering the basis of the research agenda on the EU’s foreign and security policy

What kind of foreign policy may be produced by an entity such as the EU – which is neither a state nor an international organisation? The efforts to build a common European foreign and security policy forces us to rethink deep seated understandings of what foreign and security policy actually is and of what a polity is that can conduct such policies. It requires us to reassess core analytical categories in the study of international relations and foreign policy, such as those of rationality, power and sovereignty. Through a reconceptualisation of core concepts it is possible to develop a distinct empirical research agenda on European foreign and security policy, allowing us to move forward in terms of accounting for the emergence of this peculiar foreign policy actor.