The European Union's Foreign Economic Policies：A Principal-Agent Perspective

The European Union is a key actor in international economic governance. Through its foreign economic policies it plays a central role in the negotiation of international trade agreements, the global regulation of the financial services sector, and the provision of aid to developing countries. This book shows how principal-agent theory can be used to shed new light on this complex of policy areas. In particular, the contributions to this volume analyze delegation, control, and agent strategies in a variety of principal-agent relationships shaping the EU's foreign economic policies: mainly those involving interest groups and governments; governments and the European Commission; and the European Union and international organizations.

The chapters, written by leading experts in the field, offer empirically-rich studies of various areas of the EU's external economic relations including trade, financial regulation, accounting standards and global regulation through the G7/G8. The book is aimed at researchers and advanced students interested in the EU, international economic relations, and principal-agent theory.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

Andreas Dur is Professor of International Politics at the University of Salzburg, Austria.

Manfred Elsig is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Bern, Switzerland.