Description
The transition from a trans-Atlantic, liberal world order to one of multiple, overlapping orders has caused much consternation about the capacity of the European Union (EU) to recalibrate its identity and behaviour. One response has been to re-narrate the Union as a vehicle for the pursuit of great power politics in a new "great game' on the global chessboard. A second, liberal internationalist story arguably reprises elements of earlier visions of the EU as sui generis diffuser of "civilized", "civilian" or "normative" best practice via large scale connectivity projects like the Global Gateway and Indo-Pacific Policy. Both approaches, we contend, reinscribe historical habits of narrating the EU/Europe as central. Calling for a more meaningful process of relational learning across "interlocking regional worlds" (Fisher-Onar and Kavalski 2022), we argue that large-scale connectivity projects are not merely about establishing infrastructure or facilitating trade, but also – and primarily – about generating new, interconnected imaginaries with which to manage the complex transitions afoot in global life. These emergent imaginaries, we contend, will generate new forms of being in, reading, and shaping the world which, for better and for worse, will result in the pluralization of narratives of European actorhood.
