Contain, Consolidate, and Co-Opt
Key takeaways
- Liberal democracy and the rule of law are in retreat, including in Europe itself.
- “Our Europe is mortal,” French President Emmanuel Macron warned his audience at the Sorbonne in 2024. “It can die, and it all depends on our choices.”
- This article has been adapted from The Scramble for Europe: Russia, China, and Turkey Challenging Regional Order by Dimitar Bechev (Oxford University Press, 224 pp., $29.99, July 2026).
Liberal democracy and the rule of law are in retreat, including in Europe itself. European Union-style multilateral governance and win-win economic integration, underpinned by jointly agreed norms, are no longer en vogue in a world where strongman-led great powers vie for influence. Once a lynchpin of the old order, the United States now bears more resemblance to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey than to Scandinavian countries enamored with democratic accountability. Meanwhile, nativists and populists are making electoral gains across the EU—and also in the United Kingdom—calling for renationalizing politics and undoing globalization and European integration.
“Our Europe is mortal,” French President Emmanuel Macron warned his audience at the Sorbonne in 2024. “It can die, and it all depends on our choices.”
Macron’s doom and gloom is not far-fetched. Liberal democracy and the rule of law are in retreat, including in Europe itself. European Union-style multilateral governance and win-win economic integration, underpinned by jointly agreed norms, are no longer en vogue in a world where strongman-led great powers vie for influence. Once a lynchpin of the old order, the United States now bears more resemblance to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey than to Scandinavian countries enamored with democratic accountability. Meanwhile, nativists and populists are making electoral gains across the EU—and also in the United Kingdom—calling for renationalizing politics and undoing globalization and European integration.