THE EU'S CLIMATE LEADERSHIP AS NORMATIVE SOFT POWER: DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY AND GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE

Abstract

European Union (EU) operates as a primary force in international climate governance while people associate it with the concept of "normative power Europe." The study evaluates EU climate leadership to determine whether it operates as genuine normative soft power. The research investigates whether EU climate leadership results in effective international impact while assessing how internal democratic legitimacy supports this impact across the fragmented international regulatory system. The study uses constructivist norm theory and legitimacy scholarship and regime complexity approaches to analyze the Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2015) negotiations and the European Green Deal implementation after the Paris Agreement. The research shows that EU climate leadership operates as normative soft power under particular situations. Democratic unity within an organization enables that organization to establish trustworthiness with its external partners, which leads to successful alliance formation and regulatory expansion throughout its distributed governance system. The presence of domestic divisions and uncertainties about implementation processes decrease the strength of recognition and negotiation power. The EU uses normative soft power in climate governance by establishing credibility through its recognition process, which makes its leadership dependent on specific political situations.