Glyn Morgan, associate professor of political science, was recently a guest on Disorder Podcast to discuss his new book, The Rise and Fall of American Europe (Polity, 2026). Following is an excerpt from the interview.

So, American Europe, I think, is traditionally characterized with this term ‘PAX Americana.’ But I want to go a little bit further than that and say there was more than just a peace agreement, a peace settlement and a bunch of multilateral institutions. What emerged bit by bit from the 1940s onwards is a distinctive state form which I call American Europe.

That distinctive state form had four different components in a sense. It had, at the top, an Atlantic level which provided the security. This was an extraordinary new development that European security was going to be provided, to all intents and purposes, by the U.S. military. 

At the second level, you've got a European level which is in charge of trade so that the European nation states have no trade responsibility. It all passes to Europe.

At the third level, you've got the standard European nation state which provides your health care and your education. And there's a fourth dimension which I think is very important, that Europe manages its immediate surroundings through a process of enlargement. And this process of enlargement is again, very  new.

So you put all those four things together, you have a unique and distinctive state form, call it American Europe, and that's been around for 80 years. It replaced an earlier state form I call Imperial Europe, which America really hated and wanted to destroy because it was a pure competitor and the new American Europe was not a competitor.

Watch the full interview on the Disorder Podcast YouTube channel.