War in Ukraine has shown that the West is not dead: but what does it mean, why does it endure? This talk questions the long tradition of declinist literature on the West and its emphasis on its civilisational identity.

We seek to understand the persistence of the West and it can be argued that this is better explained by reintroducing interest-based approaches to the more normative foundations of ‘explaining the West’. In this context, it is necessary to address where the EU fits into this West, are some states more ‘Western’ than others, and how is this ‘Westerness’ reflected in the EU’s foreign and security policies.