Normative power or geopolitical actor?

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the International Relations Working Group features a panel by Jan Orbie, Professor of EU Development Policy and Global Affairs, and Max Weber Fellows Miranda Loli and Anissa Bougrea.

The European Union continues to present itself as a distinctive global actor: simultaneously normative, values-driven, and increasingly geopolitical. Yet this self-perception sits uneasily with how the EU is experienced and interpreted beyond Europe, particularly in the Global South. From legacies of colonial rule and conditional development partnerships to perceived double standards in responses to Ukraine and Palestine, the EU’s external actions often generate readings that diverge sharply from its own narratives.

This panel brings together critical perspectives to examine the growing gap between how the EU understands itself and how it is perceived by others. It asks why EU institutions and policy debates -often including those within European academic spaces- appear puzzled by Global South actors’ willingness to cooperate with alternatives such as China, and why a decolonial lens finds this neither surprising nor anomalous.

By engaging questions of power, legitimacy, security, development, and international cooperation, the discussion aims to open a broader conversation on how Eurocentric assumptions shape EU external action, and how these assumptions, in turn, affect the EU’s relationships, credibility, and room for manoeuvre in a changing global order.

Speakers:

1. Jan Orbie is Professor of EU Development Policy and Global Affairs, whose work critically examines the European Union’s role in global development, power asymmetries in EU external action, and the political economy of North–South relations.
2. Miranda Loli is a Max Weber Fellow whose research focuses on international organisations, global governance, and how local actors navigate and reshape international interventions, particularly in conflict and post-conflict contexts.
3. Anissa Bougrea is a Max Weber Fellow working on the geopoliticisation and financialisation of EU development aid, with a particular focus on colonial continuities, private finance mobilisation, and Global South perspectives.

The panel is designed as an interactive conversation rather than a series of formal presentations. After short opening reflections from each speaker, ample time will be reserved for discussion and audience engagement, encouraging critical dialogue across perspectives and disciplines.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration.