Introduction

With fluctuations in contemporary global politics resulting from the emergence of multipolarity, the shape of any future global order is likely to be heavily influenced by the interplay of major powers. This edited volume focuses on the individual and collective agency of three such powers that are already key to contemporary global politics given their overall economic, political and security primacy and bound to remain central to it in the future: China, the European Union and the United States. To prepare the ground for the various contributions to this volume, this introductory chapter outlines this volume’s rationale, including the choice of key themes, while briefly foreshadowing its main contents.