What is it about?
This article: Reconceptualizes soft balancing as a tool for understanding the EU’s governance model based on an extensive review of the literature on soft balancing in Europe. Demonstrates how soft balancing in Europe developed from state strategies pursued by individual states, mainly the US and France, in the post-Cold War era into an elaborate governance model with institutional mechanisms and diplomatic practices for pursuing power and interests without resorting to war. Analyses how the EU today uses soft balancing between member states and directed towards external actors and discusses the challenges from the war in Ukraine and calls for the EU to become a geopolitical actor
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Why is it important?
What is the future of the EU? Current debates centre on the development of the EU as a geopolitical actor, but without much focus on the the nature and characteristics of the existing EU governance model or the consequences for EU governance if the EU becomes a geopolitical actor. This article provides the necessary tools and knowledge for anyone who wants to understand these complex issues.
Perspectives
Trump may challenge Europe, but the EU's soft balancing governance model offers important institutional and diplomatic tools for keeping Europe stable, responding to threats and influencing international affairs beyond European borders. This article explains how and why. As a European citizen and a student of security policy and international and regional orders understanding the EU in the current security environment is hugely important.
Dr. Anders Wivel
University of Copenhagen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The EU's soft balancing governance model: origins, characteristics and prospects for the future, International Affairs, January 2025, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/ia/iiae265.
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