Abstract
The European Union has been an analytical anomaly for students of international relations (IR) due to the inherent difficulties in understanding the ‘nature of the beast’ through the lens of IR theory. By conceiving of the EU as a system of international relations, this book challenges this traditional view and offers a compelling approach that bridges the EU's internal processes with the broader dynamics of the international system. To unravel the complexity that surrounds the EU's internal policy making and its external consequences, the authors use three interrelated dimensions or levels of analysis. These conceptualise the EU as a sub-system of international relations (micro level); as a power in international relations (meso level); and as part of the wider processes of international relations (macro level). Viewed analytically, this resembles a continuum where the EU is both a structure and an agent that shapes the international structures and is shaped by them. Framing the study of the EU in these terms allows the authors to overcome previous limitations and place the EU where it belongs: into the wider literature of international relations.
The second edition of this book is a comprehensive and well-structured piece of work. After developing the theoretical framework in the first part, some space is devoted to analysing the institutional and procedural issues of the EU, which paves the way for the substantive part of the book – a thorough study of diverse issue areas, where the impact of the EU is assessed. Although the chapters address a wide variety of topics, the inclusion of two new sections on the EU's relations with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and on the EU's environmental and energy policy is noteworthy. Moreover, while most of the contributions remain mostly unaltered with regard to the first edition, these have been carefully revised and updated to include recent developments in the Union's external activities brought about mainly by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
However, the greatest success of the second edition of this book remains its ability to bring the study of EU policies back into the realm of international relations. With an elegant theoretical proposal and strong empirical support, this study justifies the need to demystify the uniqueness of the EU and to understand it instead as part of the broader international processes at work. In any regard, this book represents a major contribution to the literatures on EU foreign policy and IR more generally.