The European Union: From a Complex Adaptive System to a Policy Interpreter

The current article builds on complexity theory and offers a new perspective on EU actorness in external policies. It does so by looking at the EU as a complex adaptive system and by adding new instances to previous analyses on EU agency. More concretely, the article critically assesses the idea that the EU becomes a policy interpreter when external actors start to interact following new policy practices. This entails examining how external actors enable EU institutional learning, and, through this, new forms of EU actorness. The argument is illustrated by using the case of triangular cooperation as a recent policy practice helping the EU to fulfil its commitments to aid effectiveness.