When the Comprehensive Approach Narrows

This article questions the limits of the EU’s comprehensive approach in the caseof the common non-proliferation policy towards Iran. Combining sociology ofpolitical sectors and role sociology, I elaborate the hypothesis that the mobilisation and the sudden abandon of the comprehensive approach constitute theobjectivation of inter- and intra-sectorial struggles taking place in the contextof international negotiations. Based on this socio-historic reconstruction ofthe non-institutionalisation of the comprehensive approach, I illustrate that theinstitutionalisation of European foreign policy is not necessarily the result ofthe Europeanization of its builders.