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Eternal potential? Temporality, complexity and the incoherent power of the European Union

Temporality is a relatively under-explored factor in international relations. The concept of timescape refers to the temporal timeframe of institutional processes and/or the timeframes of causation at different levels. Said concept has powerful explanatory potential in the case of complex, fragmented entities such as the European Union (EU). Critical realism offers a historicist meta-theoretical framework for delineating and analysing timescapes of different forms. Theories of critical political economy and historical sociology can be used to critique the EU’s own liberal teleological timescapes. The Union’s leadership postulates a central future role for it, based on its long-term structural relationships, and its Mediterranean policy is a prime example of this structural foreign policy. However, its component structures are profoundly dissonant and unlikely to coalesce into a meaningful role. The EU’s engagement in the Mediterranean illustrates how its long-term approach is over-ridden by the ‘real-time’ agency of other actors, and by deeper socio-economic cycles which it cannot control. A focus on temporality thus helps to interpret and explain the fragmented power of the EU; as well as our complex international system more generally.