‘The Politics of Domestication’: A New Paradigm in German Foreign Policy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes The acronym BverfGE refers to decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court. A. Merkel, Ja zum Vertrag über die Verfassung in Europa, Rede zur EU Verfassung vor dem Deutschen Bundestag, 12 May 2005, http://www.angela-merkel.de/pdf/2005_06_16_rede_merkel_europa_finanzgipfel.pdf (accessed 28 Feb. 2006). D. Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.7. P. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1987). P. Katzenstein, ‘Conclusion: Semisovereignty in United Germany’, in S. Green and W. Paterson (eds.), Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.283–306; W. Paterson ‘European Policy-Making: Between Associated Sovereignty and Semisovereignty’, in Green and Paterson (ed.), Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited, pp.261–280. S. Harnisch, Internationale Politik und Verfassung. Die Domestizierung der deutschen Sicherheits- und Europapolitik (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2006), p.28. S. Harnisch, 'Grenzerfahrungen. Deutsche Europapolitik und Europäischer Verfassungsvertrag’, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 17/1 (2007), pp.61–77; S. Harnisch, ‘Die Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Regierung Merkel: Eine liberale Analyse der Großen Koalition’, Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik 3/1 (2010; in print). B. Ehrenzeller, Legislative Gewalt und Außenpolitik (Basel: Helbing und Lichtenhahn, 1993); L.H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law (Mineola, NY: Foundation Press, 2nd edn, 1988). J. Jupille and J. Caporaso, ‘Institutionalism and the European Union: Beyond International Relations and Comparative Politics’, Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999), pp.429–44. Jupille and Caporaso used ‘domestication’ to describe the indigenisation of alien legal concepts, i.e. EU law, into domestic legal order by lawyers, judges and litigants without further specification. H. Suganami, The Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); T. Hitzel-Cassagne, ‘Rechtsstaatliche Domestizierung der Außenpolitik?’, Kritische Justiz 33 (2000), pp.63–85. G. Garret, D.R. Kelemen and H. Schulz, ‘The European Court of Justice, National Governments, and Legal Integration in the EU’, International Organization 52/1 (1998), pp.149–76; A. Stone, ‘What is a Supranational Constitution? An Essay in IR Theory’, Review of Politics 56/3 (1994), pp.441–74. A. Giddens, The Constitution of Society. Outline of a Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984). A. Moravcsik, ‘Why the European Union Strengthens the State: Domestic Politics and International Cooperation’, Paper for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, Sept. 1994; A. Moravcsik, ‘Warum die Europäische Union die Exekutive stärkt: Innenpolitik und internationale Kooperation’, in K. Wolf (ed.), Projekt Europa im Übergang? Probleme, Modelle und Strategien des Regierens in der Europäischen Union (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1997), pp.211–70; K. Wolf, Die neue Staatsräson – Zwischenstaatliche Kooperation als Demokratieproblem in der Weltgesellschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2000). T. Börzel, States and Regions in the European Union. Institutional Adaption in Germany and Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). P. Katzenstein, ‘Conclusion: Semisovereignty in United Germany’, in Green and Paterson (eds.), Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited, p.305. C. Jeffery, ‘A Regional Rescue of the Nation-State: Changing Regional Perspectives on Europe’, Paper for presentation at the EUSA Tenth Biennial International Conference, Montreal, 2007. The court formulated the so-called ‘Oeffnungstheorie’, whereby article 24, paragraph 1 of the Grundgesetz does not authorise the transfer of sovereign rights, rather it merely opens Germany for the direct application and implementation of community law. Hence, the court established a new interpretation of the integration-norm from article 24(1), which explicitly speaks of a transfer, by turning an irrevocable transfer of sovereign rights into a revocable granting of the exertion of EU sovereignty within German jurisdiction. L. Hoffmann and J. Shaw, ‘Constitutionalism and Federalism in the “Future of Europe” Debate: The German Dimension’, German Politics 13/4 (2004), pp.625–44. It is noteworthy that the Lisbon ruling (2009) of the FCC downplays the issue of structural securing clauses thereby strengthening the argument that the court does not envision further integration even if it corresponds with or resembles Germany's core constitutional values as enshrined in Art. 79, 3 GG. Cf. BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08 as of 30 June 2009, para.26, http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html (accessed 25 Aug. 2009). Headnote 6 of the ruling, BVerfGE 89, 155 [156]. E. Teufel, ‘Der deutsche Föderalismus in einer erweiterten Europäischen Union’, in Jahrbuch des Föderalismus (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2000), pp.15–25 (Sebastian Harnisch's translation). Jeffery, ‘A Regional Rescue of the Nation-State’, p.11. In Harnisch, Internationale Politik und Verfassung, pp.171–233, I discuss these debates and the respective legal and political positions in greater detail. Harnisch, Internationale Politik und Verfassung, pp.234–62. In subsequent rulings the court has upheld this reasoning adamantly, see 2 BvE 1/03: In this judgment it stressed that the red–green government acted unconstitutionally when it deployed German soldiers in the NATO–AWACS mission to monitor Turkish airspace in the run-up to the Iraq war. Specifically, it held that the executive interpretation that this deployment was a ‘routine mission’ was subject to full legal scrutiny. The court also asserted that the executive prerogative to interpret international obligations, in this case the integration programme of the NATO treaty, does not include the authority to place German soldiers in contingencies where the use of force is imminent or possible, see S. Sohm, ‘Im Zweifel parlamentsfreundlich, Urteilsanmerkung zu 2 BvE 1/03 vom 7. Mai 2008’, Neue Zeitschrift für Wehrrecht 6 (2008), pp.235–43. A. Miskimmon, Germany and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union: Between Europeanisation and National Adaptation (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007); M. Overhaus, Die deutsche NATO-Politik Vom Ende des Kalten Krieges bis zum Kampf gegen den Terrorismus (Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlag, 2009). G. Hellmann et al., ‘De-Europeanization by Default? Germany's EU Policy in Defence and Asylum’, Foreign Policy Analysis 1 (2005), pp.143–64; K. Longhurst, Germany and the Use of Force: The Evolution of German Security Policy 1989–2003 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). S. Harnisch, ‘German Non-Proliferation Policy and the Iraq Conflict’, German Politics 13/2 (2004), pp. 1–34. Andrea Nahles, among others, declared in a ‘Personal Statement’: ‘We share the concern of many citizens about the expansion of the conflict by means not discussed with Germany. In order to avoid further escalation of the conflict, its spread to further (Arab) countries must be prevented. We thus welcome the limitation of the use of German armed forces in Afghanistan manifest in the government's motion: “German forces will participate in potential missions against international terrorism in countries other than Afghanistan only with the respective government's consent”.’ ‘It is asserted that this positions finds broad support in the European Community’, wrote Foreign Affairs Spokesperson in an open letter before the vote on the effects of the Iraq intervention on reconstruction in Afghanistan: ‘Should the USA follow the hard liners’ position and now continue with Somalia and Iraq, this whole process would be endangered and destroyed.’ In her personal statement, parliamentarian Michaele Hustedt made clear that her vote in favour of the Afghanistan mandate was tied to specific limits to the mandate and the reassurances given by the executive: ‘For my consent, the fact that we, the Greens, substantiated the mission's mandate was decisive: 1) The mission is not only aimed at the Bin Laden and Al Quaeda terror network and their supporters (analogous to the UN resolution). 2) The 100 Special Forces do not participate in ground combat and perform policing and military functions, e.g. hostage rescue missions and arrests.3) Missions in Somalia or Iraq are not planned. 4) There s no subordination of German armed forces under U.S. command, but that the ultimate authority remains with the German federal government. 5) There is regular information of and discussion in parliament, especially should the mandate change.’ See for all quotes: http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb5/frieden/themen/Aussenpolitik/erklaerungen.html (accessed 22 May 2009). Harnisch, ‘Die Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Regierung Merkel’. Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense, 44th Munich ‘Wehrkunde’ Conference, 2 Oct. 2008, http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?id=216&sprache=de& (accessed 25 Aug. 2009). In the judgment, the Court used a very strong legal argument to reject the executive's legal argument that innocent passengers in hijacked aircraft were ‘bound to die’ anyway. The Justices held that Art. 1(1) and 2(2) of the Grundgesetz, which protect human dignity could not be reconciled with the ‘object status’ the passengers would become when attacked by the armed forces of states. Whilst the judgment notes that the ruling applies to ‘non-war’ contingencies only, the use of the ‘Objektformel’ in this ruling may very well domesticate the use of German military force in future asymmetric wars where enemies regularly use civilians as ‘human shields’, e.g. Lebanon, Afghanistan, see K. Ipsen, ‘Menschenwürde und Waffeneinsatz mit Kollateralwirkung auf Zivilpersonen’, Neue Zeitschrift für Wehrrecht 4–5 (2008), pp.156–63. Moravcsik, ‘Why the European Union Strengthens the State’; Moravcsik, ‘Warum die Europäische Union die Exekutive stärkt; Wolf, Die neue Staatsräson. Germany's constitutionalisation policy could thus also be integrated in an ideational liberal argument, because the court's ruling obviously represented a conception of a desirable form of political order, see A. Moravcsik, ‘The New Liberalism’, in C. Reus-Smit and D. Snidal, The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.234–54. C. Schönberger, ’Lissabon in Karlsruhe: Maastricht Epigones At Sea’, German Law Journal 10/8 (2009), pp.1202–18. BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08 as of 30 June 2009, para.263. Ibid., para.211. Ibid., para.236–9, 241. N. Röttgen, Interview, ‘Karlsruhe hat sich sehr weit hervorgewagt’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 Aug. 2009, p.2; C.O. Lenz, ‘Ausbrechender Rechtsakt’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 Aug. 2009, p.7.

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