How unique is the EU as an international actor?

What is it about?

Scholars have for quite some time argued over whether the EU is more like a nation-state or a regional organization. We propose that rather than discussing this issue on a theoretical and general level, researchers should study the EU's actions on individual policy fields to make inferences about the nature of its 'actorness' in comparison to other international actors. To this end, we propose an analytical model and apply it to the field of external financial policy. For this particular case, we find that the EU has a relatively high level of actorness almost matching that of the US despite a lack of formal competences.

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Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The EU aspires to increase its international influence by coordinating and unifying its foreign policy activities. But it is far from clear how successful these efforts will be in the long run, and more research is needed to assess whether this fundamentally changes the way in which international relations are conducted.