I think this depends on whether by EU you mean the actual political leadership body, or the member countries as a general Western-European power/cultural/economic projection project.
The EU itself cannot compel military action by member countries, for instance, so you could argue it is never imperialist. But if all the major EU countries are also in NATO and sign up to help the US invade Iraq and Afghanistan, is it really unfair to criticize the EU as a shared Western-European bloc?
I mean, yeah, after writing my way through it, I can appreciate the perspective. I generally like to be precise, concrete with definitions.
But the more I thought about it, the more I worked through it, I found it interesting that, based on strict definition of the EU, as an entity unto itself with particular functions, it is like you say, it is never imperialist.
But when searching for the contours of it, where an imperialist or historically colonial member nation ends, and where global imperialism picks up, those lines are not clear at all. I’m sure they are defined legally somewhere, and I would be interested in those legal definitions, but when defined by its relation to power, it is conspicuously “never imperialist”, while existing between, and functioning in tandem with, national imperialist powers and global imperialist powers. Like it’s a little too unimperialist for an entity that is situated deep within, and rooted intrinsically with imperialism.
I think it has been a good discussion and exercise sussing this out, I don’t think in was wrong Witt my comment, but I was also only looking at it from this one perspective that doesn’t consider the EU’s most crucial relationships. And as a matter of fact, I think defining the thing, particularly in the realm of social/economics/IR, by its relationship is much more revealing and historically accurate. So i guess I mean i started with the concretization process when I commented, but it wasn’t until we continued discussion that I was able to really work it out.
But that’s why I contribute to discussions! In good faith, I learn a lot
I think this depends on whether by EU you mean the actual political leadership body, or the member countries as a general Western-European power/cultural/economic projection project.
The EU itself cannot compel military action by member countries, for instance, so you could argue it is never imperialist. But if all the major EU countries are also in NATO and sign up to help the US invade Iraq and Afghanistan, is it really unfair to criticize the EU as a shared Western-European bloc?
I mean, yeah, after writing my way through it, I can appreciate the perspective. I generally like to be precise, concrete with definitions.
But the more I thought about it, the more I worked through it, I found it interesting that, based on strict definition of the EU, as an entity unto itself with particular functions, it is like you say, it is never imperialist.
But when searching for the contours of it, where an imperialist or historically colonial member nation ends, and where global imperialism picks up, those lines are not clear at all. I’m sure they are defined legally somewhere, and I would be interested in those legal definitions, but when defined by its relation to power, it is conspicuously “never imperialist”, while existing between, and functioning in tandem with, national imperialist powers and global imperialist powers. Like it’s a little too unimperialist for an entity that is situated deep within, and rooted intrinsically with imperialism.
I think it has been a good discussion and exercise sussing this out, I don’t think in was wrong Witt my comment, but I was also only looking at it from this one perspective that doesn’t consider the EU’s most crucial relationships. And as a matter of fact, I think defining the thing, particularly in the realm of social/economics/IR, by its relationship is much more revealing and historically accurate. So i guess I mean i started with the concretization process when I commented, but it wasn’t until we continued discussion that I was able to really work it out.
But that’s why I contribute to discussions! In good faith, I learn a lot