Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks (GREEN)

Abstract:

GREEN will study the current and future role of the EU in an emerging multi-polar world through a programme of stock-taking, multi-disciplinary research and complementary activities. It aims at an understanding of the prospective directions of the emerging global governance structures and Europe's place in them. Analysis will focus on the extant actors from the 20th century, the 21st century rising powers, the increasingly influential non-state actors (from civil and non-civil society) and the new trans-national regulatory networks of public and private policy makers and regional agencies. While multi-polarity, with Europe as a pole, is a possibility, alternative scenarios are also plausible. A shift from a trans-Atlantic to trans-Pacific locus of power, or the 'depolarization' and fragmentation of authority are such alternatives; both could marginalize Europe. But these are questions to be researched; not assertions to be made. The project will have 5 components: i) conceptual analyses of an emerging multi-polar world and the theory and practice of international organisation and networks in that world; ii) evolving EU policy and practice; iii) the effects of regional leadership from Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas; iv) projects on the EU and multi-polarity within the fields of human rights and security, energy, resources and environment, trade and finance; v) a foresight study detailing scenarios for EU policy towards the emerging world order. The research will be theoretical, policy-oriented and with an interactive dissemination strategy to assure feedback from its target-publics. The work will be undertaken by a manageable consortium of partners (from Belgium, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Norway with a strong track-record of collaboration on these issues) accompanied by leading institutes from the USA, Argentina, Singapore, China, Japan, Australia and South Africa to act as hub-and-spokes for their regions.