Knowledge power Europe

ABSTRACT

In the longstanding debate over how to characterize the EU as a global actor, knowledge is conspicuously missing. We introduce the term Knowledge Power Europe to emphasize the importance of knowledge for the EU’s foreign policy efforts, particularly as they relate to addressing the urgent and complex global challenges that have become central to the EU’s global strategy. Conceptually, we show how considering the EU as a knowledge power can help overcome the limitations of other EU power concepts, and empirically, we justify our characterization by providing evidence of the use and role of knowledge in terms of what the EU is, says, and does. We conclude by discussing how a knowledge power approach can help advance an understanding of the EU’s capacity for global leadership and power in global governance efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• EU external policy
• Europe as a power
• knowledge policies
• global leadership
• global challenges

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A search of the Scopus database for the keywords Europe AND Power within the article title and restricted to the category of social sciences produced 419 results. Results with at least 10 citations were manually searched for texts that focused on international relations and the type of power Europe has. Several additional texts were identified through a general literature review.

2. We do not count mentions of ‘political science’.

3. This meaning of knowledge is the basis of an article by Ian Manners that looks at the sociology of knowledge and normative power (Manners, 2015).

4. SCOPUS, February 2021

5. This data excludes the UK.

6. More details can be found on the project web sites: www.el-csid.eu, www.insscide.eu, www.s4d4c.eu

Additional information

Funding

This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 770342.