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15 - From ‘Helsinki’ and Development Aid to Multipolar Hard Ball

from Global Challenges: International Politics, the Planet and the Universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2023

Mathieu Segers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
Steven Van Hecke
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
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Summary

This chapter argues that the European Communities (EC) and then the European Union (EU) rapidly became an international political actor which, despite the lack of military tools, did not limit its actions to the exercise of soft or civilian power.

Since the 1990s, numerous political scientists have debated the nature of the EU as an international actor, proposing the similar concepts of civilian power, quiet superpower, normative power, transformative power and liberal power. Many debated and reappraised these definitions. In the last 20 years, several historians have added their contributions to studies about the international political role of the EC/EU, revealing how the EC polity increasingly asserted itself as more than just an international economic heavyweight, with some successes, some failures and several limitations.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Recommended Reading

Ferrari, L. Sometimes Speaking with a Single Voice: The European Community as an International Actor, 1969–1979 (Brussels, Peter Lang, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krotz, U., Patel, K. K. and Romero, F. (eds.). Europe’s Cold War Relations: The EC towards a Global Role (New York, NY, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).Google Scholar
Lucarelli, S.Seen from the Outside: The State of the Art on the External Image of the EU’, Journal of European Integration 36, no. 1 (2014): 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romano, A. The European Community and Eastern Europe in the Long 1970s: Challenging the Cold War Order in Europe (London and New York, NY, Routledge, 2024).Google Scholar
Romano, A. and Romero, F. (eds.). European Socialist Regimes’ Fateful Engagement with the West: National Strategy in the Long 1970s (London and New York, NY, Routledge, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, K. E.Beyond the Civilian Power EU Debate’, Politique Européenne 17, no. 1 (2005): 6382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urbanski, K. The European Union and International Sanctions: A Model of Emerging Actorness (Northampton, Edward Elgar, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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