The EU’s Relational Geopolitics Model for a Fragmenting World Order
The European Union must confront global risks to its security, including a U.S. withdrawal from security guarantees and a potential ceasefire in Ukraine favorable to Russia (Global Risks to the EU Project, 2025). The mechanisms through which the EU can meet such challenges – typically ascribed to statecraft and nation-state power dynamics – are not straightforward. Academics and policymakers often argue that the EU is hamstrung in foreign policy because it lacks a single, unified voice and a coherent grand strategy. Kissinger’s famous quip – “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” – still resonates. But the question is misplaced. Rather than imagining what the EU could do as the state it isn’t, we can start by theorising geopolitics for the EU we actually have.

This lecture advances a “relational geopolitics” approach to statecraft that goes beyond great-power competition: a hybrid framework that blends the self-interested pursuit of power with attention to spatial complexity, local agency, and the co-production of order (Anghel, 2025). The policy implications build on the legacy of Robert Keohane and Elinor Ostrom, proposing a common-pool resource governance approach to an immaterial common-pool resource such as security (Anghel and Jones, 2025).
Date: 4 November 2025, 12:30
Venue: Nuffield College, New Road OX1 1NF
Venue Details: Lecture Theatre (L staircase)
Speakers: Speaker to be announced
Organising department: Nuffield College
Organiser: Desmond King (Nuffield College)
Organiser contact email address: politics.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Nuffield College Political Science Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Maxine Collett