experts
Richard Youngs
Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program

about

Richard Youngs is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe. He is also a professor of international relations at the University of Warwick and previously held positions in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as director of the FRIDE think-tank in Madrid.

Youngs has authored sixteen books, the most recent of which are Geoliberal Europe and the Test of War (Agenda Publishing, 2024), Rebuilding European Democracy: Resistance and Renewal in an Illiberal Age (Bloomsbury/Tauris, 2021) and The European Union and Global Politics (Macmillan, 2021).

paper
European Democracy Support Annual Review 2023
  • +7
education
PhD, MA Warwick University, BA, Cambridge University
languages
English, French, Spanish

All work from Richard Youngs

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234 Results
“Listening to Others” as European Foreign Policy?

The EU has vowed to be more receptive of its partners’ needs and concerns. To ensure the “listening to others” mantra does not become a performative quick fix, the union must clarify how this commitment fits with its desire to exert geopolitical power.

· December 3, 2024
In The Media
in the media
Playing Defence: Europe and Democracy

The tussle between democracy and authoritarianism has drastically altered Europe’s geopolitical landscape

· December 2, 2024
Survival
Triple Nexus climate conflict
paper
The EU’s Triple-Nexus Challenge: Climate, Conflict, Democracy

The EU’s fragmented approaches to the crises of climate change, conflict, and democracy fall short by not addressing the mutually reinforcing links between them. Brussels needs an integrated strategy to tackle the emerging three-way nexus and mitigate the vulnerabilities it creates.

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· November 27, 2024
Europe Economic Statecraft
research
Geopolitics and Economic Statecraft in the European Union

In response to great-power rivalry and the weaponization of interdependence, the EU has adopted a geopolitical approach to economic statecraft. To build resilience and maintain its international credibility, the union will have to balance its pursuit of economic security with broader foreign policy goals.

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· November 19, 2024
In The Media
in the media
Protecting EU Elections From What Exactly?

A discussion of the defense of democracy in the EU in 2024.

· October 30, 2024
Reclaim
The New European Commission’s Distorted Democracy Agenda

The EU’s focus on security has caused it to shift from a proactive to a defensive democracy support strategy. As a new institutional cycle begins, the union risks downgrading its global democracy promotion efforts too much and relinquishing one of its distinctive geopolitical advantages.

· October 8, 2024
In The Media
in the media
The European Union Is Becoming Too Obsessed with Defence

If, for many years, the EU dangerously neglected the need for hard, defensive power it now risks moving to other extreme – giving hard power such pride of place that it detracts from the more consequential trends that will redefine the world order.

· September 25, 2024
The Conversation
research
The EU Pushes Back a New Democracy Plan: A Mistake?

The 2020-2024 Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy has been instrumental in advancing EU democracy support through a broad range of commitments. Yet, the rapid evolution of challenges to democracy has outpaced the Action Plan’s capacity to adapt. 

· September 23, 2024
European Democracy Hub
Democratic Crossroads cover
book
Democratic Crossroads: Transformations in Twenty First-Century Politics

After more than a decade of democratic regression, three major crises have acted to reshape global politics in recent years: climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic legacy, and geopolitical conflict.

· September 3, 2024
Video of Richard Youngs discussing his new book, Democratic Crossroads: Transformations in Twenty First-Century Politics
video
Democratic Crossroads: Transformations in Twenty First-Century Politics

In his new book, Senior Fellow Richard Youngs delves into how global crises—from the climate crisis, the post-neoliberal economic shift, to rising geopolitical tensions—are reshaping democracies worldwide. While today's multi-crisis era fuels authoritarianism in some regions, others find new paths to democratic renewal.

· August 28, 2024