European Integration and Global Disorder

Lavery, S. (2020) European Integration and Global Disorder. SASE 32nd Annual Meeting Development Today: Accumulation, Surveillance, Redistribution, Online, 18-21 Jul 2020.

Abstract

Over the past decade, there have been a number of reconfigurations within global capitalism. Sustained economic stagnation has become entrenched across the advanced economies. At the same time, the rise of China has gathered pace while the relative power of the US has come under increasing threat. The European Union is imbricated deeply in these emerging shifts. However, EU studies in its current form is ill-equipped to capture these dynamics because it adopts an ‘internal’ focus on the drivers of and barriers to EU integration. In this paper, we argue that EU studies should directly engage with the global context within which integration takes shape, by drawing on International Political Economy (IPE) and in particular its concept of ‘global order’. We make three interventions in this regard. First, previous phases of European integration have been fundamentally shaped by the US-led global order in decisive ways throughout the post-war era. The European relation with these global orders has always involved an attempt to balance between what we term ‘alignment’ and ‘autonomy’. Second, we argue that a new phase of global ‘disorder’ has been unleashed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, exemplified by a series of distinctive shifts in the world economy and inter-state system. Third, we make the case that analytical engagement with this new global disorder can open-up new pathways for European integration theory. The old dilemma of navigating ‘alignment’ and ‘autonomy’ is reposed in the present moment, but under a new set of volatile and uncertain conditions. EU integration theory will best be able to capture these shifts if it embraces the ‘global order’ problematique of IPE.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Lavery, Dr Scott
• Authors: Lavery, S.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Economic and Social History

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