The EU faces an increasingly complex array of international challenges in the 21st century. This module will explore the ability of the EU to address such challenges, and assess the nature and implications of EU policies in a number of strategically important areas of the world.

It will inter alia analyse the difficulties that the EU has faced in developing a truly common foreign and security policy and in establishing itself as an effective international actor; examine the conceptual debates relating to whether the EU has moved from being a civilian and normative power towards assuming a more military power identity; assess the implications of the Lisbon treaty provisions and in particular the European External Action Service (EEAS) which sits at the core of the EU’s diplomatic identity.

A grounding in the debates on the EU’s evolution as a security and defence actor will provide the conceptual and theoretical platform for examining the EU’s actions, power and actorness across a plethora of salient international issues, including human rights, development, trade, and relations with strategic partners, including the United States.