As the world looks to Europe to take on more responsibility in international politics and security in the devastating aftermath of Bosnia and Kosovo, this pathbreaking book provides the first systematic evaluation of the political impact of the European Union (EU) on a global scale. Little is known of the EU's international political influence, yet if the EU is to develop a viable Common Foreign and Security Policy, other actors will have to perceive the Union as an important player. Roy Ginsberg fills this vital gap by first linking the contexts and sources of EU foreign policy actions with the processes and outputs of decisionmaking and then examining how outsiders view the EU. Combining a masterly synthesis of the literature with invaluable primary interviews and case studies that document the reach of and limits to the EU's political influence, Ginsberg takes the study of EU foreign policy to a new level of analysis. By defining, describing, and explaining the different levels and degrees of external political impact, the book serves as a model for the advancement of conceptual knowledge, rigorous political science research, and state-of-the-art survey techniques and methodology. Scholars, students, and practitioners alike will find this rounded and nuanced work indispensable for understanding EU involvement in international politics seen from the perspective of non-EU players, particularly after the war in Kosovo; the enactment of the Treaty of Amsterdam; the Irish "no" vote for the Treaty of Nice; and the efforts forged by the Europeans to operationalize the new political, security, and military committees associated with the European Security and Defense Policy.

This accessible new textbook situates the European Union in a dramatically changed world order. Resisting a more traditional and abstract introduction to the institutions, structures and policy making processes of the EU, this innovative new text cuts through the jargon to demonstrate how hard the EU must work to retain its international influence. Taking into account the latest empirical developments, including the spread of war and violence in the East with Ukraine and the ongoing turbulent politics of North Africa and the Middle East, Richard Youngs – an expert in the field – introduces us to how the EU has been forced to act differently. The book is unique in offering an outside-in conceptual framework that inverts the way that the EU external action is studied and understood. It unpacks the different international challenges the EU has faced in recent years, including the weakening of global order, the need for more protective security, geo-economic competition, climate change and conflicts to its east and south. In each case the book examines how the EU has responded and how its core international identity has changed as a result, assessing whether the Union still retains strong global influence. This book is the ideal companion for students taking modules on the European Union's foreign policy, global politics, and for students of European Union Politics more broadly at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

This book explores how the European Union designs its trade policy to face the most recent challenges and to influence global policy issues. It provides with an interdisciplinary perspective, by combining legal, political, and economic approaches. It studies a broad set of trade instruments that are used by the EU in its trade policy, such as: trade agreements, multilateral initiatives, unilateral trade policies, as well as, internal market tools. Therefore, the contributions to this volume present the EU’s Trade Policy through different lenses providing a complex view of it.

This accessible new textbook situates the European Union in a dramatically changed world order. Resisting a more traditional and abstract introduction to the institutions, structures and policy making processes of the EU, this innovative new text cuts through the jargon to demonstrate how hard the EU must work to retain its international influence. Taking into account the latest empirical developments, including the spread of war and violence in the East with Ukraine and the ongoing turbulent politics of North Africa and the Middle East, Richard Youngs – an expert in the field – introduces us to how the EU has been forced to act differently. The book is unique in offering an outside-in conceptual framework that inverts the way that the EU external action is studied and understood. It unpacks the different international challenges the EU has faced in recent years, including the weakening of global order, the need for more protective security, geo-economic competition, climate change and conflicts to its east and south. In each case the book examines how the EU has responded and how its core international identity has changed as a result, assessing whether the Union still retains strong global influence. This book is the ideal companion for students taking modules on the European Union's foreign policy, global politics, and for students of European Union Politics more broadly at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Two major themes in contemporary international relations—Sino-European relations and global governance—are both addressed in this volume. In its focused analysis of Sino-European relations, global governance serves as both a topic for analysis and a conceptual framework to join together individual chapters. Featuring perspectives from a diverse group of established and promising young scholars from China, Europe, and elsewhere, this book has important implications for Chinese foreign policy, the European Union, the future of global governance, and international relations at large.

In recent years climate change has emerged as an issue of central political importance while the EU has become a major player in international climate change politics. How can a ‘leaderless Europe’ offer leadership in international climate change politics - even in the wake of the UK’s Brexit decision? This book, which has been written by leading experts, offers a critical analysis of the EU leadership role in international climate change politics. It focuses on the main EU institutions, core EU member states and central societal actors (businesses and environmental NGOs). It also contains an external perspective of the EU’s climate change leadership role with chapters on China, India and the USA as well as Norway. Four core themes addressed in the book are: leadership, multilevel and polycentric governance, policy instruments, and the green and low carbon economy. Fundamentally, it asks why we have EU institutional actors, why certain member states and particular societal actors tried to take on a leadership role in climate change politics and how, if at all, have they managed to achieve this? This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in EU studies and politics, international relations, comparative politics and environmental politics.

This book focuses on the European Union as an important actor in international relations and international political economy. The EU negotiates international economic agreements, represents Europe in international organizations, and is a major trading bloc and currency area. To what extent and under what conditions the EU can use its considerable economic power to assert its interests in the international arena is a relevant question for students, researchers and practitioners alike. To explore this question, the textbook introduces the concept of “actorness” and presents an overview of the actorness debate and theories used to explain actorness. In addition, it includes three empirical chapters on trade, finance and climate policy that apply various concepts and theories to study European actorness in the respective policy areas.