Re-thinking ‘Normative Power Europe’ from a Historical Perspective: Non-European Integration and the “Normative Shift”

This article is a follow-up of the ‘grand’ theoretical debate on Normative Power Europe and it seeks to engage with the surprising lack of in-depth historical investigation of this research program. The article attempts to contribute to the existing literature by trying to identify the origins of EU’s ‘normativeness’, i.e. to locate a significant normative shift in the EU’s becoming as a normative power. In doing so, it will advance the premise that the innovative model of governance of the European unio‎n, which inspired other processes of regional integration elsewhere, constituted and validated the EU as a normative power long before the EU itself assumed such a role. Such forms of “silent”, quiescent and “passive” normative behavior were a priori to conscious political endeavors to promote new norms and structural change in the world. This means that the normative ontology of the European unio‎n was first acquired through its ideational impact and the emulation of its system of governance beyond Europe, in different other forms of regional integration. The exploration of this largely under-theorized and empirically uninvestigated strand of enquiry will hopefully bring valuable reflections and perspectives on the normative content of the EU system of governance.