ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of the conceptual and theoretical framework of Europeanisation to answer the question ‘how does Europe matter?’ in two main sections. The first section introduces the Europeanisation research agenda and organises the findings of previous research. The chapter is constructed on the basis that the EU’s influence on foreign policy touches upon two broad areas: normative and substantive. The former highlights the changes in foreign policy norms and goals, procedures and practices, while the latter focuses on the substance and geographical interests of the target state. This chapter then moves on to introduce Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier’s three types of rule adoption and conceptualises them as three dimensions of change triggered by the EU: formal, behavioural and discursive. It also introduces a framework for measuring the direction and magnitude of change: adjustment (minor change), transformation (major change), retrenchment (negative change) and inertia (lack of change). The second section introduces the theoretical framework of the Europeanisation research agenda drawing from the insights of the new institutionalist approaches and discusses, in depth, the conditionality mechanism as the guiding theoretical approach of the overall volume. It introduces the EU-level variables (the clarity of the EU’s demands and the size and credibility of the EU’s incentives) and domestic-level variables (the positions of the governing parties, the veto players, and the domestic capacity).
