Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and was the Coordinator of the JOINT project carried out during 2021–2024.Pol Bargués is Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).

"A comprehensive, up-to-date and sober assessment of the EU’s role as a conflict manager and the challenges it faces in a more contested world. An essential reading for those who want to understand the historical trajectory and future outlook of EU security policies."Ana E. Juncos, Professor of European Politics, University of Bristol, and Editor, Journal of European Integration"A thoughtful and inventive new framework for understanding EU responses to contemporary crises and conflicts. The notion of relational power ingenuously illuminates the interplay of external and internal changes in shaping EU foreign policies – an interplay that menaces but also sustains the Union’s distinctive security impact. A subtle, original and highly valuable contribution to current EU strategic debates."Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program, Carnegie Europe"Europe and the European Union are facing a series of current challenges in a changing World Order. This highly innovative book does not just explain what these challenges are, but opens a fruitful new avenue for thinking about ways to deal with them. The book argues that Europe, and the European Union, need to be seen as relational powers. This means that they are part of an entangled world, and they are influenced both from inside Europe and from the outside. The EU thus is not a free-floating independent entity, but part of, and actor in, the changing world order itself. Europe acts in worldwide entanglements. Thinking this way about Europe´s role in the world offers both innovative explanations for new problems and novel avenues for dealing with them."Claudia Wiesner, Fulda University of Applied Sciences"Alcaro and Bargués masterfully weave the strands of years of empirical research together in an appealing theorem on the nature of the EU as a subject of international relations. Combining an outside-in perspective with the more established inside-out ones on EU foreign and security policy, they convincingly argue that the EU’s international role needs to be understood in relation to the influence of other powers when tackling crisis and conflict."Steven Blockmans, Editor-in-Chief, European Foreign Affairs Review

• IntroductionChapter 1The evolution of EU foreign and security policy discourseChapter 2Inside-out theories of EU foreign and security policyChapter 3An outside-in perspective of EU foreign and security policyChapter 4The strengths and limits of relational power EuropeChapter 5The future(s) of relational power Europe ConclusionsGeneral bibliography

Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and was the Coordinator of the JOINT project carried out during 2021–2024.Pol Bargués is Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).

"A comprehensive, up-to-date and sober assessment of the EU’s role as a conflict manager and the challenges it faces in a more contested world. An essential reading for those who want to understand the historical trajectory and future outlook of EU security policies."Ana E. Juncos, Professor of European Politics, University of Bristol, and Editor, Journal of European Integration"A thoughtful and inventive new framework for understanding EU responses to contemporary crises and conflicts. The notion of relational power ingenuously illuminates the interplay of external and internal changes in shaping EU foreign policies – an interplay that menaces but also sustains the Union’s distinctive security impact. A subtle, original and highly valuable contribution to current EU strategic debates."Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program, Carnegie Europe"Europe and the European Union are facing a series of current challenges in a changing World Order. This highly innovative book does not just explain what these challenges are, but opens a fruitful new avenue for thinking about ways to deal with them. The book argues that Europe, and the European Union, need to be seen as relational powers. This means that they are part of an entangled world, and they are influenced both from inside Europe and from the outside. The EU thus is not a free-floating independent entity, but part of, and actor in, the changing world order itself. Europe acts in worldwide entanglements. Thinking this way about Europe´s role in the world offers both innovative explanations for new problems and novel avenues for dealing with them."Claudia Wiesner, Fulda University of Applied Sciences"Alcaro and Bargués masterfully weave the strands of years of empirical research together in an appealing theorem on the nature of the EU as a subject of international relations. Combining an outside-in perspective with the more established inside-out ones on EU foreign and security policy, they convincingly argue that the EU’s international role needs to be understood in relation to the influence of other powers when tackling crisis and conflict."Steven Blockmans, Editor-in-Chief, European Foreign Affairs Review

• IntroductionChapter 1The evolution of EU foreign and security policy discourseChapter 2Inside-out theories of EU foreign and security policyChapter 3An outside-in perspective of EU foreign and security policyChapter 4The strengths and limits of relational power EuropeChapter 5The future(s) of relational power Europe ConclusionsGeneral bibliography

Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and was the Coordinator of the JOINT project carried out during 2021–2024.Pol Bargués is Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).

"A comprehensive, up-to-date and sober assessment of the EU’s role as a conflict manager and the challenges it faces in a more contested world. An essential reading for those who want to understand the historical trajectory and future outlook of EU security policies."Ana E. Juncos, Professor of European Politics, University of Bristol, and Editor, Journal of European Integration"A thoughtful and inventive new framework for understanding EU responses to contemporary crises and conflicts. The notion of relational power ingenuously illuminates the interplay of external and internal changes in shaping EU foreign policies – an interplay that menaces but also sustains the Union’s distinctive security impact. A subtle, original and highly valuable contribution to current EU strategic debates."Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program, Carnegie Europe"Europe and the European Union are facing a series of current challenges in a changing World Order. This highly innovative book does not just explain what these challenges are, but opens a fruitful new avenue for thinking about ways to deal with them. The book argues that Europe, and the European Union, need to be seen as relational powers. This means that they are part of an entangled world, and they are influenced both from inside Europe and from the outside. The EU thus is not a free-floating independent entity, but part of, and actor in, the changing world order itself. Europe acts in worldwide entanglements. Thinking this way about Europe´s role in the world offers both innovative explanations for new problems and novel avenues for dealing with them."Claudia Wiesner, Fulda University of Applied Sciences"Alcaro and Bargués masterfully weave the strands of years of empirical research together in an appealing theorem on the nature of the EU as a subject of international relations. Combining an outside-in perspective with the more established inside-out ones on EU foreign and security policy, they convincingly argue that the EU’s international role needs to be understood in relation to the influence of other powers when tackling crisis and conflict."Steven Blockmans, Editor-in-Chief, European Foreign Affairs Review

• IntroductionChapter 1The evolution of EU foreign and security policy discourseChapter 2Inside-out theories of EU foreign and security policyChapter 3An outside-in perspective of EU foreign and security policyChapter 4The strengths and limits of relational power EuropeChapter 5The future(s) of relational power Europe ConclusionsGeneral bibliography