7 After the deluge: Europe, the European Union and crisis in the world arena

Abstract

This chapter sets out to re-assess a number of arguments made in the past twenty years about the relationships between Europe, the EU and international order in the light of recent and current changes and crises within the world arena. Specifically, it starts from the emergence of an apparently new international and European order after the end of the Cold War, based on new forms of institutions, rules, negotiation and boundary-making and on new roles for key actors, including states and the European Union. It goes on to examine the key mechanisms underpinning this order, including the interactions between markets, hierarchies and networks and the impact of the EU as a ‘realist power’, a ‘market power,’ an ‘institutional power,’ and a ‘normative power’. The chapter then explores the challenges to this conception of European order in the early 21st century, emerging from power shifts at the domestic and European levels, the impact of economic crisis, the fragility of existing boundaries and the emergence of a multipolar or ‘interpolar’ world arena. Finally, it assesses the capacity of European actors, and, specifically, the EU, to absorb, divert or capitalise upon the ‘deluge’ of multiple crises that emerged during the period 2019-2022, and explores alternative future courses for the EU’s engagement with European and world order.