Suchergebnisse

From its beginnings, in the aftermath of the first post-war period, the liberal order has significantly changed the texture, actors and tones of international politics, aiming to create institutions and rules that harnessed the forces that for centuries led political communities to wage war. Never fully realized, the liberal order has produced the most significant network of connections between societies, going so far as to make war unlikely in the areas where it has established itself most profoundly. An ambitious model which, refusing to separate the peaceful space of liberal democracy from the international one of Westphalian states, it promised widespread well-being, security and prospects for progress for individuals and groups. Today, however, many of its promises have been broken, illiberal actors have taken on ever-increasing economic and political weight, and the liberal world has become fragmented and weakened. Moreover, the crisis of liberal democracy within states and the phenomena of "autocratization", as well as the difficulty of liberal societies in giving effective responses to the challenges posed by a rapidly evolving technological world, represent challenges that make the liberal order's resilience uncertain. This chapter aims to analyze the main features of the crisis of the liberal order to evaluate its possible evolution.

Gender discrimination continues to be a reality in several parts of the world, also in Europe. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of both European Union's (EU) gender policies and gender balance in EU institutions. It does so by looking at gender equality policies and the EU legal system concerning gender equality, women's representation within diff erent institutions (and more particularly in the European External Action Service), gender rights as a type of human rights and the EU's role in the external promotion of womens' rights in third countries. The analysis shows that women's representation in the EU institutions has increased in the last decades and that the EU has strengthened its att ention to gender rights in its external relations as well, however the results of both att empts are far from being fully satisfactory.

Abstract not available. Adapted from the source document.

After years of collective fascination with the idea of the EU as a 'special' global actor, some scholars have started to investigate whether such a perception of distinctiveness is shared by people, institutions and intellectuals outside of Europe. Such investigations have already produced some interesting results, but they are still limited in terms of geographical and functional scope of research, and they tend to be under-theorised and to fail to engage to their full potential with other branches of literature. This article illustrates how the analysis of the external image of the EU can contribute to the overall understanding of the EU's identity and role in world politics. It goes on to review the main projects on the external image of the EU and their findings, as well as the main challenges to this type of research. It finally proposes avenues of research for the future. Adapted from the source document.