Overview

In Continent by Default, Anne Marie Le Gloannec, a distinguished analyst of contemporary Europe, considers the European Union as a geopolitical project. This book offers a comprehensive narrative of how the European Union came to organize the continent, first by default through enlargement and in a more proactive, innovative, but not always successful way. The EU was not conceived as a foreign-policy actor, she says, and the Union was an innocent on questions of geopolitics. For readers who may wonder how the EU arrived at Brexit, the invasion of Ukraine, and the refugee crisis, Le Gloannec ties events to the EU's long-term failure to think in politically strategic terms. Le Gloannec takes readers through the process by which, under the security umbrella of the United States, the European Commission engineered a new way for states and societies to interact. Continent by Default shows the Commission domesticated international relations and promoted peace by including new members-enlargement was the most significant tool the EU used from its inception to organize the continent, but the EU also tied itself to its regional neighbors through various programs that too often gave those neighbors the advantage. As Continent by Default makes clear, the EU cannot devise strategy because foreign policy remains the privilege of national governments. It is a geopolitical actor without geopolitical means.

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9781501716669

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This original and timely book is of exceptionally high quality. Anne Marie Le Gloannec's insights and interpretations make a major contribution to the literature on the EU. -- Desmond Dinan, author of <I> Ever Closer Union</I> What happens when soft power goes right and hard power goes missing? Anne Marie LeGloannec's Continent by Default is a superbly timed, extraordinarily sobering, and persuasively argued survey of current European-Union geopolitical dilemmas. -- Charles S. Maier, author of <I> Once within Borders</I> Continent by Default is a remarkable book-clear and incisive in its analysis, far-reaching in its concerns, as it considers how to deal with the multiple foreign and security challenges that the European Union faces as a reluctant geo-political actor in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood. Whether considering the EU's Enlargement to the East, Russia and the Ukraine crisis, or the refugee crisis, LeGloannec provides chapter and verse on the trials and travails, the miscommunications and mishaps, of a continent that lacks the governance instruments, the central power, and even the will needed to respond effectively to its many challenges. -- Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and Professor of International Relations and Political Science in the Pardee School, Boston University.

Author Information

Anne Marie Le Gloannec is a senior research fellow at Sciences Po. She is the editor of Non-state Actors in International Relations.

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