The Scramble for Europe

Europe used to be an agenda-setter at the global level but is now on the backfoot, facing rising populism internally as well as pressures from Russia, China, Turkey, and the U.S. that are undermining the European Union's cohesion and international influence. In The Scramble for Europe, Dimitar Bechev traces the consolidation and, starting from the late 2000s, the subsequent crisis of the European regional order anchored in the EU. He argues that authoritarian powers are posing a direct challenge to the latter as they seek to remake Europe in their image. At the same time, their objectives differ. The Ukraine invasion put on display Russia's radical revisionist agenda. By contrast, China aims to co-opt a diminished Europe, largely through economic means, in a future world order that it dominates. Erdogan's Turkey wants to strike a deal where it is recognized as a top-tier stakeholder in Europe, as opposed to an eternal candidate for EU membership. Bechev folds all of these trends into an expansive account of the current regional order's transition, recasting our understanding of the current crises and revealing how external challenges to the EU and NATO will shape Europe's trajectory in the years to come.