The EU’s Strategic Partnerships in a Multipolar World

The language of ‘Strategic Partnerships’ is out of fashion in the Brussels bubble, yet the EU continues to sign flexible agreements with external actors. Why this divergence between rhetoric and reality? In this article, we examine the changing nature of the international order and the role of Strategic Partnerships within different external environments. We show that Strategic Partnerships have proven valuable in a context of diffuse multipolarity owing to their flexibility, their low level of institutionalisation, their focus on bilateral ties, and their connotations of strategic actorness. Thus, EU Strategic Partnerships have come to take on a very different function to that of the post-Cold War world, where they were intended as a means of intensifying cooperation with democratising actors outside of the EU’s regional orbit. Moreover, this has altered the nature of such partnerships, which are increasingly signed with non-democratic actors with a view to managing potentially conflictual relationships. Our findings demonstrate the continuing value of Strategic Partnerships as a tool of EU policymaking as well as the ways in which external change has altered the nature and function of the EU’s policy toolkit.