Artur Gruszczak Associate Professor Institute of Political Science and International Relations Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland e-mail:
[email protected] Intelligence Support for Diplomacy: Information Sharing and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union Paper to be presented at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention, 26-29 March 2014, Toronto, Canada FIRST DRAFT - WORK IN PROGRESS - PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE Introduction The birth of the European Union coincided with dramatic, violent and destructive processes taking place in the Balkans, the Horn of Africa and the region of Great Lakes. The European Union, having been developing its international actorness and identity, decided to start building and enhancing its capacities to prevent and respond to external crises and violent conflicts in the most effective and coherent way. This meant at that time, the mid- 1990s, the widening of the external dimension of its policies and entering the area of diplomacy and security. The complex and demanding system of international relations and interactions in the era of post-Cold War strategic conundrum became increasingly dependent on information, communication and data management. Governance, management and policy-making processes in the digitalised world, based on complex information networks and communication channels, were saturated with mass information flowing from sources dispersed all over the world. Diplomacy has always been connected to information and knowledge: about other states, their political systems, economic resources, demographic features, cultural traits, etc. As the foreign relations went global, more 1 complex and interrelated, involving more actors belonging in different categories, state diplomacy was in a growing need of learning and understanding different components of the world system for they permeated state sovereignty and interfered in national interests and objectives.