I will present two papers at the 8th Pan–European Conference on International Relations in Warsaw. The first paper examines the state of the art of principal-agent studies in the field of EU external action, the weaknesses and the strengths of these applications and the methodological challenges that principal-agent scholars face when applying principal-agent theory to the study of the EU’s external action. The second paper discusses the application of the literature on new-institutionalism, principal-agent models and bureaucratic politics to EU foreign policy. The full program of the conference can be found here.