This paper challenges the common depiction of the European Union (EU) as an economic giant, political dwarf and military worm. It argues that this depiction fails to acknowledge the EU’s structural power and the more subtle ways in which the Union exerts power in the international realm. Building on Susan Strange’s theory of the United States (U.S.) as a ‘transnational empire’ and Stephan Keukeleire’s concept of ‘structural foreign policy’, the paper seeks to demonstrate that EU is more powerful than is still commonly thought. To account for the more subtle and indirect manners in which the EU exerts power on the global stage, the paper presents a new conceptual understanding of power, adapted to the present-day realities of globalisation, interdependence and post-Cold War order, notably ‘transnational power over’ (TNPO). Combining insights from Steven Lukes’s work on power with reflections from Susan Strange and other scholars of international political economy (IPE), the concept of TNPO captures the degree to which international actors are institutionally, materially and/or ideationally subordinate to or dependent on a dominant actor, making it difficult for them to resist its initiatives or turn down its offers. The paper concludes by presenting a conceptual framework based on the notion of TNPO. The framework demonstrates how a dominant actor such as the EU can rely on its TNPO to negotiate favourable agreements, which in turn strengthen its TNPO
