Introduction

The aim of the chapters in this book is two-fold. First, they seek to assess whether foreign policy actors in Europe understand the international system and behave as realists. They ask what drives their behaviour, how they construct material capabilities and to what extent they see material power as the means to ensure survival in a post-Cold War context apparently marked by growing instability. The contributors use or contest realism in its different forms as laid out in the chapter by Jack Donnelly. These authors also identify continuity or change in the foreign policy of key European actors. They ask whether the use of realism helps us to understand what might be critical junctures and why. Second, they examine whether a thick normative order has developed and whether this has changed the ways in which actors understand fear and uncertainty along with the ways to manage them.