Objectives

TRANSWORLD would pursue three sets of objectives: scientific, policy-relevant, and network-relevant.

As for the scientific objectives, TRANSWORLD would:

• examine structural changes producing new actors (both state and non-state), institutions, norms, modes of political discourse, and the ensuing governance challenges within four key policy domains:
  • economy (including trade and financial)
  • security
  • environment
  • human rights and democracy
• trace the EU and US’s policies of adjustment and response to the changes in these policy areas by assessing:
  • the goals, means, and action patterns of EU and US external policies since the end of the Cold War
  • the views of US and EU political, economic, and social elites of current and prospective EU and US adjustment policies in the given policy fields
  • the ability of the EU and the US to exert leadership in pursuit of their goals in the given policy fields
• compare the EU and US’s policies of adjustment to changes in the international scene by singling out convergence and divergence patterns between them
• test the following hypotheses, concentrating on their implications for the viability of a global governance architecture:
  • the transatlantic partners are drifting apart, and transatlantic leadership in governance architecture-building is attainable only occasionally and its role for global/regional governance is limited
  • the transatlantic relationship is evolving along a pattern of sectoral/selective cooperation, and transatlantic leadership is attainable only in specific policy fields and its implications for global/regional governance are ad hoc and subject to contingent factors. Transatlantic cooperation would be interest-based, and the patterns of cooperation and competition would follow a logic of common or conflicting interests
  • the transatlantic relationship is transforming into a different but enduring partnership, whereby the transatlantic partners claim a leadership role in, and consequently have a strong impact on, governance architecture-building. The transatlantic relationship would still remain a community based on a collective identity and common institutions. However, it would adjust to the new realities of the 21^st century.

As for the policy-relevant objectives, the project would:

• highlight the policy implications resulting from the above analysis and put forward recommendations for a transatlantic effort aimed at:
  • upgrading bilateral consultation and cooperation mechanisms with the view to building an effective transatlantic relationship in an evolving context
  • maximising EU-US synergies to contribute to a viable, effective, and accountable regional and global governance architecture

As for the network-relevant objectives, the project would:

• contribute to the development of a transatlantic research area by fostering links between academic and policy researchers and institutions;
• bring a European voice in policy debates that remain dominated by American scholarship while putting together a team of researchers with strong and longstanding transatlantic links;
• create an inter-disciplinary transatlantic research network, featuring political scientists, international relations scholars, political economists, and international lawyers, which addresses comprehensively and under a common research framework the transformations of transatlantic relations in multiple policy fields.