The Prime Minister and the Core Executive: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Reading of UK Defence Policy Formulation 1997–2000

Abstract

This article explores the domestic formulation of UK European defence policy 1997–2000 through the intergovernmental meetings at Pörtschach and Saint Malo which set in train the development and codification of a common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in 2000, through a Liberal Intergovernmentalist (LI) framework. This research leads to five conclusions: first, that the Saint Malo initiative was a tactical shift of government policies rather than core preferences; second, that the prime minister centralised European defence policy-making within the core executive; third, that the prime minister was crucial to the development of the initiative; fourth, that the presentation of the initiative was made on lowest common denominator grounds; and, lastly, that the ‘successive limited comparisons' framework provides an effective corrective to LI's domestic policy formulation hypotheses.