Revisiting the European Union as Empire

The European Union’s stalled expansion, the Euro deficit and emerging crises of economic and political sovereignty in Greece, Italy and Spain have significantly altered the image of the EU as a model of progressive civilization. However, despite recent events the EU maintains its international image as the paragon of European politics and global governance. This book unites leading scholars on Europe and Empire to revisit the view of the European Union as an ‘imperial’ power. It offers a re-appraisal of the EU as empire in response to geopolitical and economic developments since 2007 and asks if the policies, practices, and priorities of the Union exhibit characteristics of a modern empire. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of the EU, European studies, history, sociology, international relations, and economics.

Introduction European Union: An Empire in New Clothes? Hartmut Behr & Yannis A. Stivachtis 1. EU’s Eastern ‘Empire’ Georgeta Pourchot 2. ‘Empire’, ‘Governing from the Distance’, and the Mitigation of Violence: Towards a Novel Policy Framework for the EU Politics Hartmut Behr 3. The Uses and Misuses of the Imperial Paradigm in the Study of European Integration Jan Zielonka 4. European Union: Imperial Geopolitics and Enforcement Chains József Böröcz 5. European Union, Conditionality and Empire Yannis A. Stivachtis 6. Imagining ‘Europe as an Empire’: Competing/Converging Geopolitical Imaginations and EU Enlargements Aylin Güney 7. Europe’s Post-Imperial Condition Kalypso Nicolaidis & Nora Fisher Onar 8. Linguistic Imperialism of and in the European Union Robert Phillipson 9. Through a Glass, Darkly. The Symbols of European Empire Russell Foster