Just as the war in Iraq was being conceived in the minds of decision makers in Washington (some say as early as January - March 2002), the EU was opening the doors to its Convention in Brussels. The simultaneity of two events, coupled with elections in Germany in September 2003, I posit, was to have profound consequences. In the intersection of these events, and what they symbolized, also lies a clue the following puzzle: Given the cost both in terms of relations with the US, but perhaps even more importantly in terms of undermining the one international organization that gives France status and influence, why did Chirac choose to actively oppose the US/UK in the United Nations on the Iraq issue? As Quentin Peel noted while the crises was still underway: Jacques Chirac ? fears that the UN will be condemned to irrelevance if it rolls over and says Yes to Washington ?.Yet it is a huge gamble by Mr. Chirac, too. If he denies the US the resolution it wants - just a nice international rubber stamp for a quick and clinical exercise in regime change - it may not bother even to ask next time. And there will be a next time. Thus, as late as March, experts were still predicting that Chirac could come around. Yet he did not. Why? Several explanations compete: Chirac may have acted to boost popularity, to maintain good relations with African countries, to protect French economic interests, to avoid angering Muslims in France, to uphold norms and principles in which he believe, or for other reasons. In this one case the research design is naturally indeterminate. However, one possible explanation which deserves further exploration is intra -European Politics: With Germany finally having broken its reluctant cooperation with the US security regime, France saw an opportunity to re-forge the Franco-German axis in hopes of retaining/regaining leadership within the EU. This paper will lay the foundation for a project that will analyze transatlantic relations through an intra European lens. The thesis of this project is that to understand bilateral relations between individual EU member states and the US, one must also take into account the relationship between European states. The traditional bilateral lens misses important dynamics and leaves key puzzles unanswered. At times, individual countries act in ways that cannot be explained neither from a purely bilateral intergovernmental perspective nor from the more detailed liberal perspective. Background/Body of knowledge The bilateral analysis paints a picture of states engaging in direct diplomatic and economic interaction, or what in political science terms has been described as a serious of bilateral games. Until the late 1980’s, this interaction was often portrayed purely in terms of states as unitary actors. However, with Putnam’s two-level game concept (1988) and Tsebelis’ concept of nested games (1990), international relations analysts began to disaggregate actors within the state when analyzing international relations (Mayer, 1992). The incorporation of the domestic level allowed analysis of these games to be seen as two-level for each party involved, lending a great deal of explanatory power to external behavior. Liberal IR theory would similarly seek the roots and causes of external behavior in domestic structures, processes and preferences (Czempiel 1981, Moravczik 1997). However, in the case of Europe, even adding this level of domestic analysis still renders the analysis incomplete and in some cases fails to explain why states are not choosing what appears to be their dominant strategy in the international game, or in this particular case in the transatlantic game between the EU country and the US. Thus, Europe’s grand experiment of integration adds an intermediate level to the domestic-international analysis. Thus, what is needed in this unique circumstance, rather, is a three-level game analysis, or a deeply nested game analysis, that, in addition to the domestic and transatlantic (international) level, also takes account of the intra-European level. This perspective adds greater depth of understanding about the policy choices of the European members states and harnesses predictive power of their effects on the EU-transatlantic relationship. Theoretically, this explanation falls within George Tsebelis’ framework of nested games He too asks why rational actors sometimes appear to make choices that are not in their best interest. He argues that actors are involved simultaneously in several games and that that the nestedness of the principal game explains why an actor confronted with a series of choices might not pick the alternative which appears to be optimal. However, what seems to be irrational in one arena becomes intelligible when the whole network of games is examined. He also examines the institutional effects on this type of nested game: that is, how do the institutions place constraints on the way the games interact? However, this theory has not been applied in the international arena. However, on the international level, there are also direct tradeoff between payoffs in different games, -- competing parallel games that are tied together with the same move. Putnam’s two level games do get at the international level. Thus, he suggests that rather than trying to explain outcomes from either a domestic or an international vantage point, one should aim for a general equilibrium theory that took into account the simultaneous interaction between the international and domestic arena (1988, p. 430) . Negotiators, he posited, play simultaneously at an international and at a domestic game board. This project draws on the insights of Putnam and Tsebelis and suggests that there are actually three levels of analysis in the larger transatlantic sphere. To the extent that the analysis can be kept to the upper two levels of the game (European and US-relations), the state may still be treated like a unitary actor. However, if a three-level approach is applied, the state must be disaggregated into various domestic actors. In some cases the European-US (or regional ? international) analysis may suffice, just as in some cases the domestic-international level may suffice to explain a particular outcome. Nevertheless, the portrayal is incomplete, and, more importantly, if one level of the analysis is systematically omitted, analysts will fail to derive insights from it when it does matter. By studying the relationship between Germany and France, as well as the intra-European relationship of other EU member and candidate states, in addition to the Chirac puzzle introduced already, this study will address the following highly other pertinent empirical puzzles of our present time: Britain Why did Blair, in spite of the unpopularity of the move with the US administration, sign the St. Malo agreement with France in 1999 and thereby reverse a long standing British position and accept the French preference for carrying forward EDSI (European Defense and Security Initiative) under the aegis of the EU. This came as shock to many in the US administration and elsewhere. Why, with the politico-institutional battle largely won in the NATO and WEU arena, did Mr. Blair switch? Why has Britain even met with Chirac during the Iraq crises to discuss the topic? The nested/multiple game analysis also casts light on Blair’s decision in St. Malo in 1999. Crudely, ESDI was looking increasingly necessary in the light of the failure in Kosovo. However, Blair was also trying to maintain an image as a good European at a time when the UK was not able to join the European venture of the common currency and when the UK remained outside of Schengen Pact that allows borderless passage within the signatory states of most of Western Europe (Ouinlan, 2000). Turkey Given the large negotiated economic package, the increased security provided by the US, and the increased influence in Kurdish developments within Iraq, why did Turkey fail to allow US troops to cross its territory in the war against Iraq? Again, there are competing explanations, some related to domestic politics. However, on highly possible answer is again the Inter-European analysis, which suggests that Turkey feared of punishment by France and Germany. In the reverse, it is equally interesting to use this framework to explain why European countries do not optimize within the European arena, because they are actually optimizing vis-avis the US. International Criminal Court This was the case when several candidate states signed bilateral agreements with the US on the ICC. Also: Poland Why did Poland decide to contribute to the peacekeeping in post Iraq, stirring great resentment in Germany and among other EU member states, who are upset to see Poland go into debt when the EU is schedule to spend so much money to help Poland out of poverty? Why alienate Germany, a potential key ally in the future enlarged EU, where Germany and Poland could create a new German-Polish axis? Again ? European politics cannot be separated from that of the US. Part of the explanation for what appeared to be irrational politics in the European arena is that Poland is hoping for US bases and/or benefits of increased military cooperation with the US through NATO. By cooperating with the US, Poland is sending a signal on the intra European level, that Poland is not just a weak submissive newcomer to the club, but an independent forceful player. From a policy perspective, the interesting question naturally is why countries decide to optimize in one game over another? When stuck between a rock and a hard place, what do they choose? What insights can careful case studies of conflictual situations offer about the conditions under which a country chooses to support the US, in this case, or to optimize inside Europe? Methods/Analytical approach The bulk of the research in this project will be focused on a serious of cases studies including Franco-German’s opposition to the US in UN, Polish cooperation with US, British positions on CFSP, Turkey’s cooperation failure, bilateral ICC agreements, as well as more historical cases, yet to be determined. References: Czempiel, E. O.1981. Internationale Beziehungen Ein Konfliktmodell. Munich UTB. Mayer, Frederick. 1992. Managing Domestic Differences in International Negotiations: The Strategic Use of Internal Side-Payments. International Organization, 46, 4: 793-818. Moravczik, Andrew. 1997. Taking Preferences seriously: A Liberal theory of international politics. International Organization, 51,4: 513-53. Putnam, Robert. 1988. Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two level games. International Organization 32,3: 427-460. Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. 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