Authors

Discussion

Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine has posed a major challenge to the Liberal International Order. It has laid bare the vulnerability of the states surrounding the Russian Federation to the weakening of liberal norms and the growing assertiveness of illiberal powers; the conflict has also confronted ‘Civilian Power Europe’ with the harsh realities of geopolitics in an increasingly un-civil age. The EU’s trusted policy toolbox is in need of reappraisal, and its ongoing quest for strategic autonomy remains, as yet, out of reach. This paper will provide an overview of the EU’s limitations and possibilities considering the recent disruptions within the LIO by applying a Bourdieusian field-theoretic framework: it will assess the extent to which its various forms of capital can still be effective in shaping practices in the South Caucasus, in view of modified terms of exchange brought about in times of liberal crisis. Indeed, the changed global and regional normative environment appears to have devalued the effectiveness of those species of capital long associated with Brussels, while revaluing its military form; in strongly contested and fractured regions, this will likely limit the EU’s autonomous agency in the absence of fundamental institutional change.