ABSTRACT
In a seminal early discussion of the concept of civilian power, Duchêne famously argued that it is in the interest of the EU ‘as far as possible to domesticate relations between states, including those of its own members and those with states outside its frontiers’ (1973: 19–20). Civilian powers, on his view, should aim ‘to bring to international problems the sense of common responsibility and structures of contractual politics which have in the past been associated almost exclusively with “home”, and not foreign, that is, alien affairs’ (1973: 20). Duchêne strongly believed that Europe ‘must be a force for the international diffusion of civilian and democratic standards’ (1973: 20).
