|Theories of European Integration and their Application |
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|An empirical assessment of the Constructivist approach applied to the Common Foreign and |
|Security Policy |
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INTRODUCTION

Until recently, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) had strictly been dealt with by realists. Their analysis was based on the idea that the development of a political co-operation would necessarily be blocked by member states’ interests. This blocking would be provoked by state actors afraid of a loss of sovereignty in the high politics area. Facing the undeniable development of this political co-operation that started with the European Political Cooperation (EPC) and led to the CFSP, the realist theory is weak. To explain policies’ emergence, they state that these are the result of a convergence of member states’ interests but they remain powerless when it comes to explain how these multiple interests converged.
This is only with the recent development of the constructivist current that the debate concerning the question of the “how” and the “why” of the political cooperation get diversified. However, the constructivist current remains fragmented. As Smith says,”there is no one social constructivism, instead there are many”[1]. The notion of