“Who Do I Call...?” Or Why the EU’s Rise Has Gone Unchallenged
Year: 2010
Type: preprint
Abstract: Why has the European Union’s (EU) rise to power gone unchallenged? In contrast to the conventional wisdom, which focuses on the EU's fledgling military capability, its disunity on matters of security, and the attractive force of its single market, this study shows that the EU’s rise has gone unchallenged as a result of its multi-level governance structure. This structure encourages a plurality of voices on all manner of issues, which complicates the process of signal interpretation in would-be balancing countries. The attendant fragmentation of elite consensus on threat results in underbalancing against the EU. To test the argument, this article process-traces elite reactions in the United States to the EU, with a focus on capability initiatives under the European Security and Defense Policy. The article concludes by outlining a controlled comparison case study between the EU and the Philadelphian system in order to determine the effects of federalizing centers of power with (U.S.) and without (EU) single decision-making centers. 1 The author gratefully acknowledges the following individuals for their comments and suggestions: Jeffrey Anderson, Andrew Bennett, Roger Chickering, David Edelstein, Charles Kupchan, and Abraham Newman. All faults are my own.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Institution: Georgetown University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3150006880