The Crisis of the European Union as a Complex Adaptive System

The present article argues that the current crisis of the European Union (EU) is much deeper and more profound than many EU officials and analysts care to admit. Taking the so-called sovereign debt crisis and the refugee crisis as illustrative case studies it is argued that the crisis needs to be reframed as a Complex Adaptive System which is self-organizing in a deeply incoherent manner and which current EU policies are not only not addressing but exacerbating. As an alternative, the article suggests using Adaptive Action as a framework to identify the conditions which sustain the current dysfunctionality of the European Union and makes concrete suggestions on how these conditions can be altered. Areas of further research are also identified.