ABSTRACT
George W. Bush’s tenure will long be remembered as one of the most tumultuous in transatlantic relations. Never before in the post-war period had the Atlantic community been so comprehensively split and so actively opposed diplomatically as they were over the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. What impact the Bush administration’s policies have had and what legacy they leave behind for his successor pose a series of questions for the analyst of US foreign policy. Not least of these is the extent to which his successor will be constrained by the problems and commitments which Bush left behind. While the retirement of Bush and his senior advisors in January 2009 marked a distinct end point to his administration, the opportunity for a fresh start for his successor will be severely limited by American commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ongoing challenges in dealing with Iran, North Korea and the Middle East Peace Process. While both contenders to replace him championed ‘change’ as their themes, how much change it will be possible to deliver in the years to come in many policy areas remains to be seen. That potential for change in part depends on how much scope there is for ‘agency’ in the ‘structure-agency’ debate. This is a question with particular relevance for the new administration in dealing with the foreign policy issues which America faces in the new term. It is also one, however, which has particular relevance for the question of transatlantic relations and as such it provides a good case study of this analytical approach. This is the case because there has been much speculation since the low point of 2003 as to how much relations across the Atlantic between the USA and its erstwhile European opponents have improved. While 2003 marked the low point, relations were strained across the Atlantic before this, due to disagreement over climate change, the ABM Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the CTBT and a whole host of other issues. These issues provided the backdrop to the diplomatic confrontations which occurred in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Since then, however, and particularly in the past two years, there has been a marked improvement in the tone of the transatlantic dialogue. How much of this is superficial and how much of it is substantive remains the subject of debate. A related question is how much of it is due to changes in the political actors on both sides of the Atlantic and how much their actions have managed to transcend structural changes in relations. In other words, how much has agency changed and rejuvenated transatlantic relations and how much have these changes in political actor mitigated the structural factors that others see as sources of divergence between Europe and America?
