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Power Transition as a Challenge to Normative Power Europe

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Power Transition in the Anarchical Society

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in International Relations ((PSIR))

Abstract

The EU's solidarisation agenda was tied into the liberal moment of the 1990s and early 2000s whose high point has passed. Thus, international society is being characterised by an increased sense of pluralism, with power politics and classical geopolitics returning as prominent pillars of the international (dis-)order, challenging the EU as a ‘normative power’. In this context, the EU has moved away from a foreign policy largely centred on norms and values, and instead has begun to put more emphasis on interests and ‘hard power’. But solidarism and pluralism are not mutually exclusive. EU normative power had increasingly become a self-serving exercise with neo-colonial undertones. In that context, power transition and the ensuing pluralisation may rather serve as an opportunity to make EU normative power more reflective and guided by mutual recognition.

I would like to thank the participants at a 2021 ISA Panel as well as Tonny Brems Knudsen and Cornelia Navari for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter, and Sandra Bandemer for her research assistance.

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    Thomas Diez

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  1. Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Tonny Brems Knudsen

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    Cornelia Navari

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Diez, T. (2022). Power Transition as a Challenge to Normative Power Europe. In: Knudsen, T.B., Navari, C. (eds) Power Transition in the Anarchical Society. Palgrave Studies in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97711-5_7

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