The European Union

The European Union (EU) is both a regime of regional governance and an actor within the global governance system. This chapter summarizes the development of the EU and its institutional order from its origins in the 1950s, noting the significance of two features: the distinctive institutional design and its status as a "market order." These two features are important to the constitution of the EU as an actor in the politics of global governance. The chapter considers interest-driven and "normative power" accounts of the EU's external behavior before considering some examples of the way in which it seeks to influence outcomes in global economic governance, and how these relate back to its internal characteristics. The chapter closes with comments about the sustainability of the EU in the context of a series of ongoing (potentially existential) crises.