Evaluating the Impact of EU Diplomacy: Pitfalls and Challenges

Kleistra and Van Willigen explore the pitfalls and challenges of evaluating the EU diplomacy in the context of the new institutional framework of the Lisbon Treaty. The chapter offers an in depth account of the performance of impact measurement, EU foreign policy making, and the special position of the EU as a diplomatic actor in the international arena. The authors conclude with the observation that the requirements of contemporary national diplomacy and EU diplomacy are not that different, but that the complexity of EU foreign policy making requires to use tailor-made evaluation designs which account for differences in diplomatic settings, activities and policy fields.