During the summer of 2025, I authored three articles outlining my perspective on Europe's future following the United States' departure from the Western Alliance, that were hosted in Julien Hoez's "French Dispatch".
The first article explores the historical foundations of the European Union (EU). Modern historiography shows that the periods of rapid material and cultural progress are often the result of an ecology of political entities in mutual conflict. Since the Fall of the Roman Empire, Europe has been both politically fragmented and culturally synchronized, creating the conditions for the largest efflorescence in recorded history (the so-called Great Divergence), but also for the geopolitical suicide of the World Wars.
After the II World War, the United States was able to build a global system of alliances with other democratic powers. This was possible by the superior alliance building credibility of democracy and capitalism: autocratic regimes are unable to form the kind of organic liaison that is possible open societies, where economic interests and the public opinion work as commitment devices.
The crown jewel of the American Hegemony was its European pillar, the EU, that functioned as a "doughnut confederation," with the non-participating United States at its core. With the transition of this void from formal to substantive, our generation faces the responsibility of upholding the democratic legacy of the American Hegemony in the absence of its founding member.
Post-American Europe, Part I: The Deep Historical Logic of European Unity
In the second article, the complex governance of the EU is characterised as a nomocracy, a harmonising and consociational confederacy which is less efficient but more robust than the other large international actors.
The superior institutional qualities of proportional parliamentarianism over winner takes all democracy are discussed. A High court reform based on sortition is defended:
Post-American Europe, Part II: Nomocracy and the European Model of Democratic Power
The final instalment proposes policies to address economic dependency and the foreign policy stance of the post-American Europe: technological sovereignty, competition reform, and a renewed liberal order in Europe's near abroad:
Post-American Europe, Part III: Building a Citadel of Freedom in a New Geopolitical Age
