Mission implausible? - A study of EU foreign policy behaviour

Abstract: This thesis has the ESDP/CSDP missions as its focal point. The purpose of this study is twofold: first to create a comparative overview of all the missions to map out the behavioural patterns. The descriptive part of the analysis will present the missions mandates, their result and also try to see whether the individual operations can be said to have been successful or not. The second objective is to translate, apply and test the theoretical framework of capacity to act on the missions. This theory has its origins in the school of thought called foreign policy analysis. The reason for using the concept of capacity to act is to see if it can help analyse the foreign policy behaviour of the ESDP/CSDP. The conclusions drawn from the analysis is that capacity to act can help, to a certain degree, when you want to depict the casual mechanisms behind the success or failure of an actor's foreign policy behaviour. The conclusion also makes some general assumptions about ESDP/CSDP behaviour, that it is experimental and has a wide array of tools and competences at its disposal. The negative side is the fact that the missions are often only partially fulfilling their mandates.