This panel examines how the European Union pursues security through its external action and international cooperation, and how its approach evolved throughout the years. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, the EU anchored its external relations in a paradigm of democratization and conditionality. For non-EU countries, access to EU markets, EU funding and partnership formally depended on democratic reform, human rights standards and the respect of rule of law, although the application of these principles were often controversial. The 2016 Global Strategy鈥檚 turn to 鈥減rincipled pragmatism鈥, the continued securitization of migration, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine of 2022 marked the consolidation of a different logic. The EU increasingly organises its security strategy seeking transactional partnerships that boost internal European stability, at times in tension with its normative power and the principles of international law. For instance, recent engagement with de facto authorities in Afghanistan, the differentiated, often asymmetric, application of sanctions to comparable violations of international law, and the externalization of migration management through agreements with third countries illustrate this trajectory.
The panel situates these developments within broader debates on international (dis)order, the erosion of multilateralism, and the rise of ad hoc and bilateral cooperation. It aims to understand whether the EU is adapting to a disordered environment, contributing to its production, or both, and what this transformation implies for the EU鈥檚 identity as a normative actor and for the resilience of the rules-based order it claims to advocate for.
We welcome theoretical, empirical and comparative papers on EU security, external action and cooperation that document, explain or periodize these shifts. We also invite contributions that contest this account, whether by demonstrating continuity in EU practice, questioning the coherence of the earlier normative paradigm, or offering alternative readings of the EU鈥檚 current strategic posture. Papers examining specific policy domains (enlargement, neighbourhood policy, migration, defence, sanctions, development cooperation) and specific bilateral or regional relationships are particularly encouraged. Comparative papers situating EU practice against other global actors are particularly welcome.
