This book analyses how the European Union (EU) has dealt with crises and conflicts, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear dispute and Syria’s civil war, to understand the peculiar nature of its role in international security. Rather than focusing on the institutional set‑up of the EU’s foreign and security policy, the authors look at the ‘outer’ world, concentrating on crises and conflicts impinging on Europe’s security. They argue that the EU and its member states’ policies are constrained by systemic factors such as acute geopolitical rivalries and the fragmentation of regional governance systems, as well as by multi‑source internal contestation of policies across member states. Hence, building on pragmatist‑informed analysis they show that the EU’s actorness in international security is first and foremost constituted by interactions with its domestic and systemic context, and as such it should be understood as a ‘relational power’.
This volume will be of great use to scholars and students of International Relations, European Studies, Security, Conflict and Peace Studies, and Diplomacy Studies seeking to deepen their understanding of the subject.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1
The evolution of EU foreign and security policy discourse
Chapter 2
Inside-out theories of EU foreign and security policy
Chapter 3
An outside-in perspective of EU foreign and security policy
Chapter 4
The strengths and limits of relational power Europe
Chapter 5
The future(s) of relational power Europe
Conclusions
General bibliography
About the Author :
Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and was the Coordinator of the JOINT project carried out during 2021–2024.
Pol Bargués is Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).
Review :
"A comprehensive, up-to-date and sober assessment of the EU’s role as a conflict manager and the challenges it faces in a more contested world. An essential reading for those who want to understand the historical trajectory and future outlook of EU security policies."
Ana E. Juncos, Professor of European Politics, University of Bristol, and Editor, Journal of European Integration
"A thoughtful and inventive new framework for understanding EU responses to contemporary crises and conflicts. The notion of relational power ingenuously illuminates the interplay of external and internal changes in shaping EU foreign policies – an interplay that menaces but also sustains the Union’s distinctive security impact. A subtle, original and highly valuable contribution to current EU strategic debates."
Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program, Carnegie Europe
"Europe and the European Union are facing a series of current challenges in a changing World Order. This highly innovative book does not just explain what these challenges are, but opens a fruitful new avenue for thinking about ways to deal with them. The book argues that Europe, and the European Union, need to be seen as relational powers. This means that they are part of an entangled world, and they are influenced both from inside Europe and from the outside. The EU thus is not a free-floating independent entity, but part of, and actor in, the changing world order itself. Europe acts in worldwide entanglements. Thinking this way about Europe´s role in the world offers both innovative explanations for new problems and novel avenues for dealing with them."
Claudia Wiesner, Fulda University of Applied Sciences
"Alcaro and Bargués masterfully weave the strands of years of empirical research together in an appealing theorem on the nature of the EU as a subject of international relations. Combining an outside-in perspective with the more established inside-out ones on EU foreign and security policy, they convincingly argue that the EU’s international role needs to be understood in relation to the influence of other powers when tackling crisis and conflict."
Steven Blockmans, Editor-in-Chief, European Foreign Affairs Review
