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August 25, 2026

Turning the EU's South Caucasus moment into a permanent strategy

Murad Gafarov Recent wars in Ukraine and Iran have raised the South Caucasus's strategic value to the EU. Murad Gafarov argues Brussels should move beyond engaging Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia case by case, building a permanent strategy around the region's shared interdependence instead Read more
August 20, 2026

Who would pay to leave Mercosur – and who would really lose

Nicolás E. Salvoni Tensions between Argentina and Brazil after Javier Milei's remarks warning Brussels not to 'restrict' the newly signed EU-Mercosur trade deal with safeguards have revived speculation about Mercosur's future. But Nicolás Salvoni explains why withdrawal remains unlikely. Here, he uses trade data to show why smaller economies – and Argentina's auto industry – would bear the sharpest costs, while Brazil's would be lower Read more
August 6, 2026

Why anti-EU rhetoric persists without an anti-EU public

Zoe Gueli Zoe Gueli argues that in Italy, the anti-Brussels rhetoric of governing right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia survives not because Italians are Eurosceptic, but because its rhetoric functions as a domestic political tool – one that EU institutions are structurally unable to counter Read more
July 10, 2026

How the EU normalises the Taliban without recognising it

Kaweh Kerami Kaweh Kerami argues that the Taliban’s first visit to Brussels was not recognition, as the EU insists, but something politically consequential all the same: proof that repeated contact can hand an unrecognised regime real standing, one technical meeting at a time Read more
June 5, 2026

Europe 2.0: a new political economy for the age of Trump and China

Dennis Shen For decades, Europe prospered under American security guarantees, open trade and cheap external imports. That world is disappearing. Faced with a more antagonistic United States, a rising China and global geopolitical competition, Dennis Shen says the EU must either become a strategic power in its own right – or risk longer-term decline Read more
May 27, 2026

☢️ France is gambling with Europe’s credibility 

Robin Gilman France claims that a 'safer’ Europe is the goal of its new nuclear policy. Yet Robin Gilman argues that undermining the nonproliferation treaty is eroding the EU’s credibility and safety, leaving it at a crossroads. It can either remain a reliable partner – or fuel the collapse of the rules-based order Read more
May 26, 2026

🎈 The European Democracy Shield: defending what?

Omran Shroufi We commonly hear EU leaders talk about the need to ‘defend democracy’. Yet, as Omran Shroufi shows, their discourse is often more about identifying and naming geopolitical threats than it is about tackling pervasive, home-grown structural problems of democratic disconnect and disillusionment Read more
March 13, 2026

Are EU climate policies becoming too complex to succeed? 

Steffen Hurka Steffen Hurka and Yves Steinebach reveal that EU climate legislation has become so complex that even well-resourced member states struggle to put it into practice. Longer, more detailed laws create implementation failures regardless of administrative capacity, suggesting the EU's climate ambitions may be undermined by how laws are written Read more

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Advancing Political Science
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