Abstract
This chapter presents a broader view of the European Union (EU) role in the international system. It reviews the intersection of multilateralism and multipolarity in International Relations scholarship, and explores literature on the EU’s power and position in the emergent multipolar system. The chapter deals with the distinct theoretical traditions and offers suggestions for attempting to integrate the findings of multiple theoretical traditions in future research on the EU, multipolarity and multilateralism. The institutionalisation of multilateralism through generalised principles that J. G. Ruggie argues qualitatively defines multilateralism is marginalised in most realist accounts of multipolarity. Both multipolarity and multilateralism have been heralded as the defining characteristics of the emerging twenty-first century order by these respective camps, with diametrically opposed results for world order. Scholars of EU multilateralism, both internal and international, have used constructivist methods to excavate the meaning of multilateralism in the European context.