Unpacking Interests in Normative Power Europe* MÉDÉRIC MARTIN-MAZÉ King’s College London Abstract The concept of normative power Europe accurately captured the distinctiveness of EU’s interna- tional practices. However, it fell victim to social constructivism, from which it derived an exclu- sionary ontology perpetuating the dualism between norms and interests. To conceive those notions as two faces of the same coin, one needs a thicker ontology. This is what Bourdieu pro- vides for in anchoring norms and interests in social fields. Interest is simultaneously what ties actors to particular games (generic interest) and what makes them make particular moves in these games (specific interest). To illustrate how Bourdieu’s sociology shapes a better understanding of normative power Europe, I explore the transmission of EU’s integrated border management in Central Asia. In this case, EU power elites delegate the business of wielding this normative power of Europe to a Vienna-based international street corner society. Introduction More than a decade ago, Manners argued that international practices carried out in the name of the EU do not correspond to the mainstream analytical categories of power pol- itics and civilian power. To capture this distinctiveness, he coined the concept of norma- tive power Europe. According to Manners, the EU acts distinctively on the international scene insofar as it is able to shape the appropriate standards that third parties ought to observe in global and domestic politics. The ability to diffuse the norms constitutive of one’s political identity is key to bolstering such normative claims (Manners, 2002). To understand how the normative power of Europe is wielded, it is necessary to account for the conditions under which EU-style norms circulate transnationally. While there is much need for empirical investigation of normative power Europe, it cannot proceed from the assumptions that inform most of the literature on this topic. Al- though Manners has warned against decoupling interests from norms (Manners, 2011), I contend that the social constructivism upon which the normative power thesis is built per- petuates the norms v. interests dualism. Such a dichotomy impedes a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of how the normative power of Europe works in practice. More specifically, it suppresses significant empirical questions, such as that of actors’ in- terests in circulating norms in the name of the EU. In contrast, Pierre Bourdieu’s structural constructivism enables such an investigation. It overcomes the norms v. interests divide *This piece was first presented in September 2013, during the European International Relations Summer School. Transforming this communication into the present article was a difficult process which was, however, made a lot easier by the advice and support of colleagues and friends. Thanks are particularly due to Anthony Amicelle, Didier Bigo, Jef Huysmans, Julien Jeandesboz, Monique Jo Beerli, Shoshana Fine and Francesco Ragazzi. I have also greatly benefited from the constructive criticism and comments of the three anonymous reviewers. © 2015 The Author(s) JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA JCMS 2015 pp. 1–16 DOI: 10.1111/jcms.12257