This book ​addresses one of the most profound transformations in international governance: the proliferation of regime complexity. Regime complexes can be found wherever state interests clash. Thus, even in one of the most constitutionalized of institutional environments, the European Union (EU), regime complexity features prominently - especially in European defence cooperation, where states have created competing institutions overlapping in their mandates to organize armaments cooperation or defence planning. The tense relationship between the institutions of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and those of NATO is well-known. Yet inter-institutional conflict is not limited to this dichotomy. It extends to institutions beyond these two frameworks, such as those of the former Western European Union and regional defence cooperation frameworks such as the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO), or OCCAR - a minilateral armaments agency. All these institutions have partially overlapping membership structures and mandates and therefore rival authority claims in the field of European defence.

This strongly interdisciplinary book provides a first tentative evaluation of the role that geopolitics plays in shaping the genesis and functioning of the law of EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It introduces the reader to the geopolitical context of the EU and of its main neighbours, as well as to the legal architecture of CFSP. The book then presents selected cases of the Union's action (or inaction) in CFSP since 2009. These show the key argument of the book: the law of CFSP is not entirely fit for purposes as it does not reflect the geopolitical reality of the continent. The book reflects on such geopolitical reality as it results, in particular, from the 2004 EU enlargement, and comments upon three key issues of the CFSP legal framework: issues of coherence, accountability, and effectiveness.

This book analyses the European Union's (EU) approach to peacebuilding in its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions, and explores how this approach impacts the EU's role in international conflict management. Peacebuilding carried out through CSDP instruments has become central to the self-conception of the EU as an actor in international conflict management. EU missions and operations have, for the most part, been deployed to promote peacebuilding efforts in post-conflict situations, in particular through capacity-building, reforms and rebuilding of state structures. This book focuses explicitly on the peacebuilding dimension of the CSDP while exploring why and how the EU has adopted peacebuilding in its CSDP actions as a norm and a practice. It analyses how peacebuilding in EU missions is conceptualised, designed, governed and implemented. The book examines the extent to which EU missions and operations reflect a normative and practical commitment of the EU to peacebuilding - that is to say, the extent to which CSDP instruments have been shaped by international peacebuilding norms and EU foreign policy. Drawing on empirical insights from decision- and policymaking processes in Brussels as well as from missions in Mali and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book offers critical perspectives on the EU's role as an international peacebuilding actor.

This book explores the EU's approach to peacebuilding and questions the EU global role as crisis manager and capacity builder. It highlights the significant contributions of the EU to civilian peacebuilding and also critically evaluates the activities of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) within their rule of law and human rights peacebuilding missions. It draws on the author's twenty years of experience working on CSDP and EU defence matters including his research on EU police missions in Africa and Middle East. It exposes emergent tension between peacebuilding in its neighbourhood and security issues. It examines the practice of EU peacebuilding including performance of its missions and how deployed personnel can professionalise their diplomatic (mediation, negotiation and dialogue facilitation) capacity to fully realise the potential of missions and exploit opportunities for expanding the vision of peace.

This volume addresses developments in European space policy and its significance for European integration, using discourse theory as a framework. It seeks to address the developments in European space policy by examining several sensitive security questions linked in general with space activities, on the one hand, and the interplay between space policy and security policy in the European Union (EU) on the other. The book argues that defence and security matters should be studied for a better understanding of space projects in their historical, political, economic, legal and social context. The volume seeks to answer the following key questions: * What can space policy contribute to European identity formation and the integration process? * What are the interests of member states/EU institutions in space? * How is space policy perceived by European institutions, and how have they been engaged in the policy process to promote activity in space? * In which ways is the EU engaged in space, in terms of policy areas, e.g. foreign policy, industrial policy, security and defence policies? * What is the impact of institutions on the policy-making process in European space policy?

This book analyses whether the EU's drift towards European strategic autonomy presents a challenge or a window of opportunity for its small member states to advance their security interests. The volume presents small states' perceptions of European strategic autonomy, highlighting their expectations and concerns. The chapters focus on the depth and breadth of European strategic autonomy, national security considerations, assessment of the impact on transatlantic relations, the expected outputs, and its potential impact on the EU's institutional structure. It also shows how systemic circumstances and the interests of powerful states, either belonging to the EU (France, Germany, and Poland) or having a significant say in European security architecture (the US), establish opportunities and constraints for the small states to shape European strategic autonomy. In particular, the study focuses on the diverging interests of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands. It demonstrates that, in most cases, European strategic autonomy is perceived not as an alternative to NATO but as a supplementary element that could facilitate the development of national military capabilities, indigenous defence industries and resilience to non-military threats. Ultimately, the book suggests that national approaches towards European strategic autonomy mainly stem from pragmatic national security and foreign policy considerations, while largely ignoring grand strategic ideas. This book will be of much interest to students of European politics, security studies, and international relations.

This book examines how internal and external security are blurring at the EU level, and the implications this has for EU security governance and the EU as a security actor. The EU claims that 'internal and external security are inseparable' and requires a more integrated approach. This book critically assesses this claim in relation to the threats facing the EU, its responses to them, and the practical and normative implications for EU security governance and actorness. It sets out a novel conceptual framework - the EU security continuum - to examine the ways and extent to which internal and external security are blurring along three axes: geographic, bureaucratic, and functional. This is done through an analysis of four key security issues, regional conflict, terrorism, organised crime, and cybersecurity. The book demonstrates that, to varying degrees, these security threats and/or responses do transcend boundaries. However, institutional turf wars and capability silos hamper the EU's integrated approach and, therefore, its management of transboundary security threats. Yet, the EU's pursuit of an integrated approach is reframing its claimed normative distinctiveness toward a more practical one, based on a transnational and multidimensional approach. Such a rearticulation, if implemented, would make the EU a genuinely transboundary security actor, properly structured and equipped to tackle the 21st century's internal-external security continuum.

This book examines the evolution of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) from its inception in 1998 to the present day. Using the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism, it examines both the successes and failures of the CSDP. Drawing on a series of interviews with officials and researchers from various EU institutions, NATO, and diplomatic missions of EU member states, it assesses what has instigated changes in the CSDP, and why some events have proven more determining and influential than others. The book reviews six crises that have shaped the CSDP, including the Yugoslav Wars, the Second Gulf War, the Libyan campaign, the Ukrainian crisis, the Syrian crisis, and Brexit, in order to understand how real-life events have influenced policy. In this context, the book defines the term 'European Strategic Autonomy' dynamically, as the residual effect of negotiation over time.

International Relations and the European Union takes a unique approach by incorporating the study of the EU's world role into the wider field of international relations. As the most comprehensive introduction to the EU's international relations written by leading experts in the field, it is the key text for anyone wishing to understand the EU's role in the contemporary world.Beginning with an examination of theoretical frameworks and approaches, the book goes on to address the institutions and processes that surround the EU's international relations. Key policy areas, such as security and trade, are outlined in detail, alongside the EU's relations with specific countries and regions.Updates for the fourth edition include new chapters on the EU's relationship with Africa and Asia, coverage of the implementation of the EU's foreign policy, and exploration of how the EU's international relations relate historically to the European integration process, and the contemporary issue of migration.

This book analyses how and to what extent ex-communist states have adjusted their defence strategies since joining the EU and NATO, and how differences and similarities between their strategies can be explained. Between 1999 and 2013, four phases of enlargement took place when the European Union (EU) and NATO allowed 11 new former communist states to enter both organisations. These states share some common attributes and experiences related to strategic culture and common experiences during the Cold War era that can potentially explain similarities in behaviour and preferences among them. However, the strategic adjustments among these states are far from uniform. In an effort to explain these differences, the book introduces three intervening variables: (1) differences in relative power and position in the international system, (2) national geographical characteristics; and (3) historical experiences related to formative periods of state-building processes as well as wars and armed conflicts. Empirically, the book strives to present and analyse the defence strategies of each of the new allies by conducting a structured focused comparison of official strategic documents from the twenty-first century for each of the 11 cases. Theoretically and methodologically, it introduces an analytical framework enabling us to explain both similarities and differences in the formulation of the strategies of the 11 states, and to shed light on their external and internal efforts to promote their strategic interest by operationalising the dependent variable - defence strategy. The analytical framework combines elements of structural realism with classical realism, and constructivist research on unit-level characteristics related to relative power and perceptions of strategic exposure.

This book provides new and established researchers with innovative methodologies and research strategies to explore European security integration from a different perspective, challenging traditional theoretical interpretations. It takes a step back from well-established theoretical approaches to the European Union's (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) to ask more fundamental questions about the core assumptions underpinning research on European security integration. It supports methodological innovations with an analysis of the most significant empirical problems of European security governance, including the war in Ukraine or the role of Russia in European security. In the last chapter, the author offers ideas for new pedagogical approaches to teaching European Studies.

The SIPRI Yearbook is an authoritative and independent source of data and analysis on armaments, disarmament and international security. It provides an overview of developments in international security, weapons and technology, military expenditure, arms production and the arms trade, and armed conflicts and conflict management, as well as efforts to control conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.