TY - JOUR

T1 - The Power of Peaceful Change

T2 - The Crisis of the European Union and the Rebalancing of Europe’s Regional Order

AU - Wivel, Anders

AU - Wæver, Ole

PY - 2018/6/1

Y1 - 2018/6/1

N2 - The European Union is typically perceived by its proponents as an avant-garde, anti–power politics polity capable of civilizing its own political space and its geopolitical neighborhood. For the past decade, this conventional European narrative has been challenged by a series of events and developments amounting to an allegedly existential crisis of the EU. In order to understand the crisis and its potential consequences for peaceful change in Europe, we use two analytical prisms to explore how and why the EU is, at the same time, a successful example of international peaceful change—even peaceful transformation—in international affairs and plagued by existential crisis. The first prism is realist and explains European integration and its development in terms of the interests of the most powerful states. The second prism is identity constructivist and explains European integration in terms of identity articulations. We argue that realists are right to point to the importance of a power shift in Europe, but wrong to argue that this is threatening EU-integration. Germany is now stronger than before, but German discourse on how to exercise power is closely intertwined with peaceful change and EU-integration.

AB - The European Union is typically perceived by its proponents as an avant-garde, anti–power politics polity capable of civilizing its own political space and its geopolitical neighborhood. For the past decade, this conventional European narrative has been challenged by a series of events and developments amounting to an allegedly existential crisis of the EU. In order to understand the crisis and its potential consequences for peaceful change in Europe, we use two analytical prisms to explore how and why the EU is, at the same time, a successful example of international peaceful change—even peaceful transformation—in international affairs and plagued by existential crisis. The first prism is realist and explains European integration and its development in terms of the interests of the most powerful states. The second prism is identity constructivist and explains European integration in terms of identity articulations. We argue that realists are right to point to the importance of a power shift in Europe, but wrong to argue that this is threatening EU-integration. Germany is now stronger than before, but German discourse on how to exercise power is closely intertwined with peaceful change and EU-integration.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Peaceful Change

KW - European Union

KW - Regional order

KW - Realism

KW - Identity constructivism

KW - Germany

KW - France

KW - Crisis

U2 - 10.1093/isr/viy027

DO - 10.1093/isr/viy027

M3 - Journal article

VL - 20

SP - 317

EP - 325

JO - International Studies Review

JF - International Studies Review

SN - 1521-9488

IS - 2

ER -