The European Union's Strategic Partnerships: Global Diplomacy in a Contested World [Hardcover]

This book provides a critical and updated analysis of the nature of the EUs strategic partnership diplomacy, and of the partnerships themselves, in times of power shift and contestation. It links with key aspects of the EUs Global Strategy; it brings together a strong list of experts who work within a clear framework for analysis; and it deals not only with the substance of the policy but also with the ways in which the policy as a whole has emerged, is conducted and might develop in the future. In offering an inclusive set of case studies and diverse perspectives, this book aims to advance both conceptualization and analysis of the implementation of the established EU partnerships. The book highlights the notion of strategic partnership as a foreign policy instrument to support EU external action in a context of multilevel change and crisis; its policy dimension as a gradually separated, but not separable policy within the Unions external action; the institutional component given the emergence of SPs as a sort of self-preserving institutional platform allowing for denser and deeper cooperation in various policy areas; and the implications for the EUs self-conception as an international actor with a global identity and role.

Chapter 1: Introducing the European Unions Strategic Partnerships: Global Diplomacy in a contested World.- Part-1 : Strategic Partnerships in the European Unions Diplomatic Practice: Evolution and Analysis.- Chapter 2 : Strategic Partnerships in EU External Action: Evolution and Analysis of a Developing Policy Instrument.- Chapter 3: Institutional Perspectives on the EUs Strategic Partnerships: Where is the Focus and Authority?.- Chapter 4: Soft Power in the EUs Strategic Partnership Diplomacy: The Erasmus Plus Programme.- Part-2 : The Transatlantic Partners: The United States and Canada.- Chapter 5: The European Union and the United States: competition, convergence and crisis in a strategic relatiolÃÒ