ABSTRACT
The European Union is at the forefront of engaging in external trade relations outside of the World Trade Organization with entire regions and economic powerhouses. Yet, the European Union uses different modes when designing its trade policy towards regional organizations. These modes are bilateralism, interregionalism, or multilateralism. Chapter 1 sets out to identify the empirical puzzle of why the European Union swings between these different modes towards and within different world regions, and the gap of research in analyzing that particular question. It follows with an overview of the theoretical argument offered in this book that draws on realist theorizing, and elaborates the assumption of the European Union as a unitary actor in the external dimension of Common Commercial Policy, that is, trade policy.
