Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss

---

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss
Professor Sophie Vanhoonacker.jpg Professor Sophie Vanhoonacker.jpg
Born	1962 Knokke
🏳️ Nationality	Belgian
🎓 Alma mater	Lyceum Hemelsdaele, Bruges Catholic University of Leuven College of Europe, Bruges Vrije Universiteit Brussel Leiden University
💼 Occupation
🌐 Website	https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/s.vanhoonacker

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss (1962) is a political scientist, a Jean Monnet Professor. of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) at Maastricht University, and a senior member of the Netherlands Institute of Government. She has taught as a visiting professor at the College of Europe and has a chair in Administrative Governance at the Faculty of the Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University

In her research, Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss examines the role and influence of bureaucratic actors in multi-layered, polycentric systems of decision-making with a special focus on European foreign policy. She is especially interested in the processes of 'Brusselisation' or 'the steady enhancement of the Brussels-based decision-making bodies' in the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Recent publications have dealt with the emerging EU diplomatic system and the development of the European External Action Service (EEAS); the impact of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) on national administrations and Brussels-based bureaucracies in the field of security and defence..

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss is one of the editors of the 'New European Union Series' of Oxford University Press (together with Dermot Hodson) and the European Administrative Governance series at Palgrave Macmillan (together with Thomas Christiansen). She primarily teaches courses on EU foreign policy and external relations in both Bachelor and Master programmes of European Studies at Maastricht University.

Academic Career

Academic Positions

After receiving a recommendation, she ended up assisting the Greek academic Panos Tsakaloyannis at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht, focusing on European Foreign and Security Policy. From 1987 to 2001, she helped prepare EU Member States for the Presidency of the Council of the EU. Therefore, she prepared her possible next step to pursue a career in academia as an external Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University, in addition to her work at EIPA.

In 2001, she joined Maastricht University and had an active role in creating the Bachelor and the Research Master European Studies at FASoS. During the next few years, she became head of the Political Science department. In 2016, she accepted the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences position. Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss held the position during the following four years, until 2020.

Academic Contribution

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss is mainly using a “sociological institutionalism” perspective in her research. For instance, she mobilizes an historical institutionalism perspective in order to study the evolution of the General Secretariat of the Council of the Ministers. This approach aims at explaining why some institutional choices were made according to the development of this institution, one of the key concepts being the one of path dependency. Through this study, she explains that path dependency only occurs when there is no formal change but that the institution will adapt to a changing environment in an informal and gradual manner, underlining the continuity of practices. However, a major official change would lead to a new set of values and norms, an example of the creation of a new path.

As a topic she mostly works on the construction of a common European foreign policy. She is especially interested in the process of “Brusselisation” of the CFSP, which was until the Treaty of Lisbon decided by national capitals. She looks at both periods prior to the creation of official European bodies such as the High Representative and the European External Action Service and after.

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss focuses on the administrative level of policy implementation. Following Weber, she believes that the administrative level is different from the political one. The latter is composed of elected people that delegate different tasks to the former, composed of professionals occupying long-term positions. Within this framework, she is specifically interested in studying the administrative practices of the bodies in Brussels and their impact on the definition of the CFSP, or “administrative governance” in three phases: agenda-shaping, decision-shaping,e and implementation of the policy. This approach allowed her to show that the Europeanisation of the foreign policy had started prior to the Treaty of Lisbon, most notably because the European administrative level played an increasing role in the implementation of the CFSP, coordinating different national interests, nuancing ideas that national and communitarian interests were in opposition. Administrative practices and behaviors are highly institutionalized, which can explain how this level managed to europeanize the CFSP. She also underlines that their degree of flexibility strengthened their capacity to adapt to new international environments.

Following the Lisbon Treaty, Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss focused on the new practices in terms of foreign policy induced by the establishment of the High Representative and the European External Action Service. Using agenda-setting theories, she showed how these new “foreign policy entrepreneurs” managed to use different strategies in order to become influential actors. She found that the High Representative and the EEAS’ most successful strategy in order to gain credibility and attention was to focus on capacity-building. However, she also demonstrated that these actors were still lacking authority towards Member states to really frame European foreign policy the way they wanted to.

She is also known for having developed a theoretical framework allowing to evaluate one Member state’s performance during its rotating Presidency of the Council. She identifies four roles that the Presidency can play: “organizer, broker, political leader and national representative” and claims that the use of one specific role is linked to both internal and external environmental conditions. External environmental situations lead to specific role demands and internal environmental conditions provide specific resources defining the capacity to play a given role. A successful presidency is one that manages to answer the demands with the appropriate resources. This model allows for a more nuanced understanding and evaluation of a Member state’s Presidency, as its performance can vary between domains if the demands are different.

Education

Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss received a BA in Contemporary History at the Catholic University of Leuven (1984) and then a master’s degree in European Studies at the College of Europe, Bruges (1985). In 1989 she completed another MA in International Relations at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She obtained her Ph.D. in International Relations from Leiden University with her thesis about the Bush administration (1989-1993) and the Development of a European Security Identity.

Personal Life

Vanhoonacker-Kormoss is married to an architecture professor at the University of Liège, with whom she has a son.

Her mother was a museum tour guide, and her father worked as a dentist. She has two sibblings, her sister is a manager at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, and her brother is head of the Belgian-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain.

Most cited publications

• Hill, C., Smith, M., & Vanhoonacker - Kormoss, S. (Eds.) (2017). International Relations and the European Union. (3 ed.) Oxford University Press.
• Smith, M., Keukeleire, S., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2016). The Diplomatic System of the European Union: Evolution, Change and Challenges. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
• Neuhold, C., Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L., & Verhey, L. F. M. (2013). Civil Servants and Politics: A Delicate Balance. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316813
• Vanhoonacker - Kormoss, S., & Pomorska, K. (2013). The European External Action Service and Agenda-setting in European Foreign Policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 20(9), 1316-1331.
• Pomorska, K., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2012). Poland in the Driving Seat: A Mature Presidency in Turbulent Times. Journal of Common Market Studies, 50(s2), 76-84.
• Maurer, H., Pomorska, K., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2012). La Présidence du Conseil des Affaires Étrangères. In V. Charléty, & M. Mangenot (Eds.), Le Système Présidentiel de l'Union Européenne après Lisbonne. Ecole Nationale d'Administration - E.N.A..
• Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2012). The Amsterdam Treaty. In F. Laursen (Ed.), Designing the European Union. From Paris to Lisbon. (pp. 180-195). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L., Duke, S. , & Pomorska, K.. (2012). The EU's Diplomatic Architecture: The Mid-Term Challenge. Web publication/site, European Diplomacy Policy Papers. http://dseu.lboro.ac.uk/Documents/Policy_Papers/DSEU_Policy_Paper10.pdf
• Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2012). The Treaty of Amsterdam. In E. Jones, A. Menon, & S. Weatherill (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the European Union. Oxford University Press
• Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L., & Reslow, N. (2010). The European External Action Service: Living Forwards by Understanding Backwards. European Foreign Affairs Review, 15(1), 1-18. http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/document.php?id=EERR2010001
• Christiansen, T., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2008). At a critical juncture? Change and continuity in the institutional development of the Council Secretariat. West European Politics, 31, 751-770.
• Duke, S., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2006). Administrative Governance in CFSP: Development and Practice. European Foreign Affairs Review, 11, 361-387.
• Schout, A., & Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2006). Evaluating Presidencies of the Council of the EU. Revisiting Nice. Journal of Common Market Studies, 44, 1051-1077. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2006.00673.x
• Vanhoonacker, S. M. R. L. (2001). The Bush administration (1989-1993) and the development of a European security identity. Ashgate.

References

This article "Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Sophie Vanhoonacker-Kormoss. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---