The EU’s role in fighting global imbalances

Abstract:

This book looks at the role of the European Union in addressing some of the greatest challenges of our time: poverty, protectionism, climate change, and human trafficking. The recent crisis has depleted the Union’s economic and political resources. At the same time the Union is, like never before, expected to confront these global challenges on the world political arena, where new regional power centres are establishing themselves. Based on a broad and interdisciplinary understanding of the concept of global imbalances, this book argues that these challenges follow from pervasive global imbalances, which at root are economic, political, and legal in character.

Contributions from ten leading scholars in the fields of economics, law, and political science provide in-depth analyses of three key dimensions of EU foreign policy, namely: the internal challenges facing the EU, as its 28 member countries struggle to coordinate their actions; the external challenges facing the EU on the global arena, in areas where global imbalances are particularly pervasive, and where measures taken by the Union can have an important impact; and the EU´s performance on the global arena, in the eyes of other key actors.

Table of Contents:

1. The EU and global imbalances | Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Moa Mårtensson, Lars Oxelheim & Thomas Persson
2. Transformative power or political dwarf? European leadership and global imbalances | Lisbeth Aggestam
3. The role of aid in reducing global imbalances: the EU and Africa | Arne Bigsten
4. Superentrepreneurship and global imbalances: closing Europe's gap to other industrialized regions | Magnus Henrekson & Tino Sanandaji
5. Global imbalances in climate protection, leadership ambitions and EU climate change law | Sanja Bogojević
6. Human trafficking as a result of global imbalances: the role of the European Union | Anna Jonsson Cornell
7. Can the European Union use agreements to even out the global imbalance in the protection of human rights? | Andreas Moberg
8. The imbalances between the European Union and China | Ari Kokko
9. The EU’s relations with Russia: off balance and beyond repair? | Anke Schmidt-Felzmann
10. External perceptions of the EU: obstacle or asset in the fight against global imbalances? | Ole Elgström