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The European Union is often seen as a “civil power” or “normative power” focused on a market-liberal and rules-based promotion of globalization. A critical political economy perspective, however, highlights that geoeconomic and geopolitical considerations are also part of its strategic orientation. In past decades, such considerations were tied to the dynamics of globalization and had been defined in close cooperation with the United States. Against the background of decelerated globalization, caused by a series of crisis dynamics, including the covid 19 pandemic, the EU is in the process of rethinking its international role. Debates on “strategic autonomy” indicate that the rethinking is related to transatlantic relations and the management of EU-internal crisis dynamics, but also to the changing terms of conflict and cooperation with China.

Hans-Jürgen Bieling is Professor of Political Economy at the Institute of Politics (IfP) at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen since 2011. From 2016 to 2019 he was Managing Director of the IfP; and from 2012 to 2018 he was one of the speakers of the DVPW Section on Political Economy. Furthermore, he is a board member of the F.A.T.K. (Research Institute on Labour, Technology and Culture), and he works as liaison Professor for the Hans Böckler Foundation. He is co-editor of the Journals Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) and Politikum, and of the book series on Global Political Economy (VS Springer). He has published widely in the fields of European integration and International Political Economy. Publications related to the topic of his talk include: Die Globalisierungs- und Weltordnungspolitik der Europäischen Union (Globalisation and World Order Politics of the European Union, 2010); Neue Segel, alter Kurs? Die Eurokrise und ihre Folgen für das europäische Wirtschaftsregieren (New Sails, Old Course? The Euro crisis and its Consequences for European Economic Governance, co-edited with Simon Guntrum, 2019); Globalisierungskonflikte. Die strategische Positionierung und Rolle der EU in der neuen Triade-Konkurrenz (Globalisation Conflicts. The Strategic Positioning and Role of the EU in the New Triad Competition); in: Prokla. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft 49(1), 59-78.

You can fine a recording of the talk here.