ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews the diverse foreign policy patterns of the individual member-states towards European integration and describes their various styles of foreign policy making. It looks closely at the practice of common foreign policy making in a number of issue areas, focusing on the three dimensions of the European Unions (EU's) foreign policy. In the process of European integration, the effort to create a single European foreign policy has a distinctive character. More and more foreign policy issues are treated as common foreign policies, binding national governments to the common decision taken, and making it harder for the member-states to pursue national foreign policies that are at odds with the other EU countries. Foreign policy analysis is therefore a 'bridging discipline', as Rosenau calls it, which must concern itself with politics at both the national and the international level.
