The goal of this rubric is to filter and promote the recent scholarship on Europe coming from the leading IR and Area Studies journals. The Regional Security Knowledge Hub team periodically refreshes the list, in winter, spring, summer and autumn. If you are interested in getting updates on the new content, please subscribe to our newsletter.
2024
Finally coming of age? EU foreign and security policy after Ukraine, by Marriene Riddervold and Pernille Rieker, European Security 33 (3): 497-516 (2024).
The war on Ukraine is the most severe security crisis that Europe, and the European Union (EU), has faced since World War II. Contrary to what many expected, the EU responded quickly and comprehensively to the Russian invasion. How, if in any way, does the EU’s response to the war on Ukraine suggest that the EU is coming of age in the foreign and security domain? By exploring EU policies and actions across three key maturation processes, our analysis finds that the EU has become a more mature foreign policy actor, in a process that started well before the Russian full scale invasion but has escalated since then. With its broad response to the war on Ukraine, the EU has shown an increased ability to take quick decisions, provide resources and combine various instruments in response to a crisis (increased decision-making ability); it is taking on a clearer foreign policy role/identity as a principled pragmatist and crisis manager (more stable identity status); and this plays out in its relations with the US, in NATO and bilaterally (more salient and defined relations).
Ad hoc coalitions in European security and defence: symptoms of short-term pragmatism, no more?, by YF Reykers and Pernille Rieker, Journal of European Integration 46 (6): 861-879 (2024).
Ad hoc forms of military cooperation have become commonplace in European security and defence. The EU has even voiced the ambition to strengthen mutual support between its CSDP operations and European-led ad hoc coalitions. We ask whether and how this mutual support is strengthened and what it means for European defence integration. We focus on two cases: Task Force Takuba deployed to the Sahel region and the European Maritime Awareness mission in the Strait of Hormuz. Our analysis shows that European-led ad hoc coalitions are driven by short-term pragmatism, focused on providing quick fixes to collective problems and achieving particularistic gains. Plans to strengthen mutual support with the EU mostly emerge gradually and bottom-up, from military-operational experiences. However, formal integration is often hindered by political quarrels. We conclude that the EU needs a strategic vision for the position of ad hoc coalitions in European security and defence.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221116532
Transactional hedging versus value-based hedging: how small frontline states balance between European integration and Russian influence, by Kornely Kakachia, Bidzina Lebanidze, and Shota Kakabadze, European Security 33 (4): 594-614 (2024).
The Russian invasion of Ukraine significantly altered the security dynamics in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) region, placing Moldova and Georgia, two frontline states on the EU’s periphery, in precarious positions that threaten their security and stability. This article examines how these states manage their foreign policies between EU alignment and security risk management, given their status as candidates for EU membership while facing dire security challenges from the Russia-West geopolitical rivalry. We argue that both countries have resorted to hedging strategies to mitigate the immediate security and economic risks stemming from the geopolitical competition/conflict between the West and Russia. However, there is a significant difference: Moldova’s hedging has been limited to risk management vis-à-vis Russia and accompanied by Chisinau’s close normative and institutional alignment with the EU – a value-based hedging. In contrast, Georgia has maintained an equidistant stance between the two influential regional actors, an approach that goes beyond security-driven hedging. It represents a transactional hedging – an attempt to distance from the EU’s normative script and adopt a genuine multi-vector foreign policy.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2024.2388638
Can small states wage proxy wars? A closer look at Lithuania’s military aid to Ukraine, by Vytautas Isoda, Cooperation and Conflict 59 (1): 3-22 (2024).
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221116532
The European Union’s nascent role in the field of collective defense: between deliberate and emergent strategy, by Elie Perot, Journal of European Integration 46 (1): 1-23 (2024).
Over the past 15 years, the EU has gradually become more involved, de jure and de facto, in the field of collective defense. This underappreciated evolution occurred in three phases: first, an initial phase, from the steps leading up to the Lisbon Treaty, which incorporated collective defense into the EU’s mandate via Article 42.7 TEU, to the first activation of this provision following the November 2015 Paris attacks; second, a phase of indirect development, with the launch of policies on military mobility and hybrid threats, tangentially linked to collective defense; and third, a phase of direct yet incomplete affirmation, with calls to operationalize Article 42.7 TEU and the signaling of the EU as a collective defense framework during crises with Turkey and Russia. The EU’s modest forays in collective defense, while resulting from both a deliberate and emergent strategy, have become more conscious over time and thus increasingly difficult to ignore.
Franco-German leadership in the context of EU defence policy: from Brexit to the strategic compass, by Ines M. Ribeiro, José Rosa, and Ana Isaber Xavier, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 32 (4): 1112-1129, (2024).
Leadership is crucial for the success of a collective actor in reaching common goals. Its relevance is particularly visible in the EU, due to the difficulty in managing and converging a wide range of interests, especially in the intergovernmental field of defence. This article analyses Franco-German transactional leadership throughout the evolution of the EU’s security and defence policy, with a focus on the effects of Brexit. By highlighting the concept of leadership in international relations, this study identifies Franco-German actions and strategies within the Common Security and Defence Policy, reflecting on how these have shaped European defence and how Brexit changed existing dynamics. We conclude that France and Germany have led the EU’s security and defence project, albeit with limited success, with a shift towards a successful relaunch of EU defence in the aftermath of Brexit, aided by doubts over NATO and war in Ukraine. At the core of that limited success and representing the main obstacle lay diverging interests and strategies.
Securitization, Deterrence, and Extended Deterrence by Denial: The War in Ukraine, by Amir Lupovici, Foreign Policy Analysis 20 (4): orae018 (2024).
The war in Ukraine created a situation in which various actors issued and responded to existential threats. These incidents of aggressive rhetoric invite a scholarly discussion about the securitizing moves of deterrence. More specifically, I identify five interrelated securitizing moves—each responding to the other moves—within which deterrent threats are embedded: It allows us to trace how Russian enunciators securitized the threat from the West and Ukraine and justified taking the exceptional measures of an invasion. This resulted in Ukraine making a counter-securitizing move, with the aim to receive international military assistance. In addition, the Russians securitized a potential direct involvement of NATO in the war in order to deter it. Locked between these securitizing moves of Russia on the one hand and Ukraine on the other, NATO members eventually chose to advance an extended deterrence by denial strategy through the unique means of providing weapons. By delivering the message that they are committed to support Ukraine, they aim to convince the Russians that allocating resources to fight in Ukraine is a worthless endeavor. Examining this case thus offers interesting implications for both deterrence and securitization theories.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orae018
Political Psychology of Emotions in European Union Foreign Policy in Times of Ontological (In) Security and Crisis, by Ian Manners, Journal of European Integration 46 (5): 817-837 (2024).
The article argues that understanding when and how emotions matter in times of crisis requires simultaneous contextualisation through setting out three different approaches to the political psychology of emotions in EU foreign policy in times of ontological (in)security and crisis. Firstly, through a longitudinal survey of emotional anxieties and fears in the EU from the 1990s to the 2020s drawing on the introduction of ontological security studies by Kinnvall, Manners, and Mitzen. Secondly the article analyses the SI contributions empirically in terms of the way in which the EU’s discrete crises are part of a wider planetary organic crisis. Thirdly, using the contributions as examples of theoretical contributions to the field of political psychology of EU, ranging from individual cognitive psychology to social psychology, social construction, psychoanalysis, and critical political psychology.
From variation to convergence in turbulent times – foreign and security policy choices among the Nordics 2014–2023, by Douglas Brommesson, Ann-Marie Ekengren, and Anna Michalski, European Security 33 (1): 21-43 (2024).
The Nordic states have long made distinct choices regarding foreign and security policy principles. However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we are witnessing a convergence of the Nordic countries’ general patterns of cooperation within their security policies. We argue that the challenging international context has led to heightened threat perceptions, triggering a reformulation of their foreign policy roles. Based on this assumption the article aims to analyse the convergence of the Nordic countries’ foreign and security policies by tracing changes in their foreign policy roles following Russia’s increasing aggressiveness. We trace the changes in the Nordic countries’ foreign policy roles through three dimensions: the changes to the international order, threat perceptions and perceptions of reduced manoeuvrability in international affairs. Our empirical analysis sheds light on how all Nordic countries perceive an increasing threat to the multilateral rule-based order, which has consequences for the roles of these states, how the threat perceptions of the Nordic states have been on high alert since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and finally how this has significantly impacted the Nordic foreign policy elites’ perception of their countries’ ability to manoeuvre and conduct autonomous foreign policy, motivating radical changes in the roles.
Crypto-Atlanticism: The untold preferences of policy elites in neutral and non-aligned states, by Filip Ejdus and Catherine Hoeffler, Contemporary Security Policy 45 (2): 331-363 (2024).
The existing scholarship shows that neutral and non-aligned countries in Europe closely and often covertly engage with NATO despite their official posture. However, we lack comparative insights into how this phenomenon plays out in various countries. To understand this phenomenon of crypto-Atlanticism (CA) better we develop a framework to capture variations depending on the strength of elites’ Atlanticist preferences and their perceptions of public opinion’s preferences for neutrality. We illustrate our framework with evidence from twenty-four interviews with policy elites from Austria, Serbia and Sweden conducted between 2020 and 2022. Our findings show that elites exhibited various forms of CA: while the strength of Atlanticism is stronger in Austria and Sweden than in Serbia, the degree of restriction in publicly expressing these preferences was less restrained in Sweden than in Austria and Serbia. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for the theory and practice of military neutrality.
Upon entering NATO: explaining defence willingness among Swedes, by Thomas Persson and Sten Widmalm, European Security 33 (4): 690-710 (2024).
In the wake of the new security situation in Europe, Sweden has decided to apply for membership in NATO. After over 200 years without war, the country must now be set to defend not just itself, but its allies as well. Are Swedes ready for this? Previous research has shown a high willingness among Swedes to defend their country. But what actually explains this high defence willingness among Swedes, given their unfamiliarity with the task? To examine the willingness of the country’s population to contribute to the military, we make use of survey data collected before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It turns out that the most general explanation for defence willingness, namely threat perception, has little or no explanatory value in the Swedish context. Surprisingly, this was true before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as after. Furthermore, context-specific explanations citing the prevalence of emancipatory values among Swedes find no support either. However, this study does find robust support for gender, trust and political orientation as important explanatory factors for defence willingness. Our findings thus underscore some challenges facing Sweden as a newcomer to NATO, as political divides along lines of gender and trust widen.
In May 2022, less than three months after Russia started its war of aggression against Ukraine, both Finland and Sweden applied for membership in NATO, thereby revoking their longstanding policies of non-alliance. What led to this shift? And what made formal NATO membership more attractive to these countries than their previous relationship with the alliance, which already amounted to informal alignment between them and NATO? To answer these questions, this article reviews the process and debates preceding the Finnish NATO application, which also proved decisive for Sweden’s alliance bid. In doing so, the article contributes to the existing literature on Finland’s NATO process as well as the broader scholarly debate about alliance formation. It argues that two factors prompted the Finnish NATO application: first, a dramatic shift in Finnish public opinion on NATO membership and, second, the emergence of a broadly shared view among Finland’s elites of the insufficiency of Finland’s existing security arrangements in view of Russia’s increased threat potential, with NATO membership seen as the only viable remedy. The article duly highlights the role of public opinion in shaping a state’s alignment preferences. Moreover, it finds strong evidence for realist (threat) and rationalist (efficiency) explanations for alliance formation.
2023
“The EU and the invasion of Ukraine: A collective responsibility to act?”, by Heidi Maurer, Richard G Whitman, Nicholas Wright, International Affairs 99 (1), 219-238 (2023).
Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has upended Europe’s security order, with many observers calling it a turning point for the European Union. This article contends, however, that the EU’s response has been less a turning point and more of an epiphany, providing a reality check for the EU and its member states about how far European foreign policy cooperation has evolved in recent decades. It suggests that an understanding of the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine requires consideration of the member states’ foreign policy co-operation, which has intensified over the past half-century, and its underpinning norm which we term a ‘collective European responsibility to act’. In emphasizing this norm, we identify core ideas about the functioning of collective European foreign policy. We re-examine three key preoccupations of the EU foreign policy-making practice and assessment through the lens of the collective European responsibility to act and show how it enables a different and novel re-reading of the added value of EU foreign policy cooperation. The EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine thus serves as a timely focusing event that demands a rethink of the premises that have underpinned our analysis and understanding of collective European foreign policy-making over decades.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac262
“Contested statehood, complex sovereignty and the European Union’s role in Kosovo”, by Alexandros Lefteratos, European Security 32: 294-313 (2023).
The emergence, longevity and resilience of contested states have redefined the relationship between sovereignty and territoriality. While fully-fledged states uphold the monopoly of authority, contested states seek to rewrite the sovereignty playbook and gain a seat among sovereign equals. This atypical antagonism, propped up by post-Westphalian statehood aspirations, has changed the way sovereignty is perceived and understood nowadays. Approaching sovereignty as multi-faceted, this article discusses contested statehood in the context of the EU’s engagement overseas. Drawing on the literature of Europeanisation and complex sovereignty, it accounts for the influence of contested statehood on the EU’s role and policies in contested states. Specifically, by delving into Kosovo’s complex sovereignty (internal/external), the analysis measures the fluctuating impact of contestedness on the EU’s employed policy frameworks and deployed crisis management tools unfolding a paradox that has defined the EU’s foreign policy in Kosovo for years.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2022.2138350
“Turkey’s ‘Soft Power Intervetionism’ in the Turkish Cypriot Community: Agents, Objectives and Implications”, by Pavlos I. Koktsidis. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 25 (3): 522-239 (2022).
This article explores the rationale and modus operandi of Turkey’s soft power projection in north Cyprus [‘TRNC’] with the aim to better understand its effects on the Turkish Cypriot political and social spheres. The study explores the recorded activities carried out by Turkey’s most prominent soft power agencies in north Cyprus and cross-checks findings with field-notes collected from 2018 to 2021. While acknowledging that under AKP’s rule, religion, history, and humanitarian ideals have constituted the backbone of Turkey’s soft power agenda in areas important to its foreign policy interests, the analysis demonstrates that Turkish soft power does not simply rest on the attractiveness and persuasiveness of its ‘message value’ alone. Turkey exercises a centrally coordinated and multi-dimensional soft power that capitalizes heavily on dependencies and local vulnerabilities. With the use of subtle and direct forms of coercion and interference, understood as part of a legitimate exchange of ‘influence for security’, Turkey’s soft power content and methodologies have become particularly problematic, as they do not presume the purely voluntary, independent, and co-opting nature of relations between the powerholder and the receptor community.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143860
“Ukraine, Multipolarity and the Crisis of Grand Strategies”, bt Alan Cafruny, Vassilis K. Fouskas, William D. E. Mallinson, Andrey Voynitsky, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 25 (1): 1-21 (2022).
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has unleashed the largest and most lethal war on the European continent since 1945. Vladimir Putin and the Russian government bear most of the responsibility for the invasion and its terrible humanitarian consequences. However, explanations for the war deriving from Russian domestic political dynamics or Vladimir Putin’s imperial nostalgia do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the crisis that led to war. Situating the crisis and ensuing invasion within the broader historical context of post-Cold War relations, we argue that the war in Ukraine has two main sources. The first is the longstanding Anglo-American grand strategy of NATO consolidation as a vehicle for political and economic domination in Europe. The second is the grand strategy of Russia. Unable to accommodate itself on an equal basis in the new U.S.-led post-Cold War global capitalist order, Russia gradually adopted a geopolitical and nationalistic agenda of confrontation in response to NATO’s seemingly inexorable eastward advance, its increasing participation in ‘out of area’ activities, and the United States’ illegal invasions of Serbia, Iraq, and Libya. The collision of these grand strategies has triggered simultaneously a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence and a U.S.-Russia proxy war.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2084881
“Between Europe and Asia: Narrow Spaces for Strategic Hedging in New Europe”, by Wenlong Song, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 25 (1): 22-39 (2022).
Since the end of the Cold War, the former Soviet states of Europe, located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, have been the site of a political game between the great powers, gradually developing a left-right strategy. This paper constructs the explanatory theory of hedging strategy and argues that post-socialist European countries, collectively referred to as ‘New Europe’, have navigated a middle way between balance and followup strategies called compound hedging. Starting at the regional scale, this paper discusses three issues, i.e., whether the new Europe has adopted a hedging strategy, why they adopt a hedging strategy, and the policy performance and effectiveness of hedging in the security and economic fields. Specifically, New Europe has implemented diversified fuzzy strategies amidst the transatlantic alliances and Eurasian powers, avoided security risks from Russia through cooperation with NATO, and balanced interest risks caused by European Union pressure through contacts with the United States, Russia, China and other countries. Although New Europe has realized certain practical strategic effects, it still faces difficulties (e.g., structural pressure changes, divergences between old and New Europe, and a lack of hedging capacities and motivations), and its policy space remains narrow and uncertain.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2129324
“The European Commission Against Gazprom: The Geo-Economic Conflict Over the Gas Market Regime in Europe”, by Nikita Odintsov, Europe-Asia Studies 75 (7): 1121-1144 (2022).
The aim of this article is to explain the reasons behind the conflict between the European Commission and Russia over the gas market regime in Europe. Using a geo-economic approach, it identifies the different and contradictory interests of the main actors in EU–Russia gas relations and how they influence this relationship. The analysis shows that attempts to improve their respective geo-economic position in the European Union and appropriate resource rent led to the fragmentation of the supply chain. Any cooperation between Russia and the European Union is complicated by the contradiction between the various actors’ interests.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2022.2134304
“Combined differentiation in European defense: tailoring Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) to strategic and political complexity”, by Benjamin Martill, Carmen Gebhard, Contemporary Security Policy 44 (1): 97-124 (2022).
Sustaining meaningful defense cooperation in Europe is made difficult by defense-industrial fragmentation, a multiplicity of institutional frameworks, divergent strategic cultures and domestic opposition to integration. The European Union’s recent foray into defense integration incorporates multiple forms of differentiation to overcome these barriers, with Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) characterized by selective membership, external participation, and project-based clustering. Such “combined differentiation” offers an instructive example of how EU practices and principles can contribute to meaningful defense collaboration, even though Brussels is often thought a weak actor externally. It also illustrates how distinct forms of differentiation can be embodied within a single structure to accommodate complexity in strategic preferences. Using the example of PESCO, this article shows how “combined differentiation” has emerged as a response to the nature of the European defense landscape and how debates between member states about how to respond to specific challenges have brought about further differentiation over time.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2022.2155360
“How to sanction international wrongdoing? The design of EU restrictive measures”, by Katharina Meissner, The Review of International Organizations 18 (1): 61-85 (2023).
Sanctions are among the most widely used foreign policy tools of governments and international organizations in response to national or international wrongdoings. Beyond the dichotomous question of whether to adopt or not to adopt sanctions against a target, decision-makers develop different designs when they impose restrictions: targeted sanctions like asset freezes and travel bans, arms embargoes, or economic sanctions such as financial restrictions and commodity bans. What accounts for this variation in the design of sanctions regimes? This article investigates this question by developing a configurational explanation that combines domestic- and international-level factors for the choice of an economic versus a targeted sanctions design. I test these factors on original data mapping European Union (EU) autonomous sanctions against third countries in force in 2019 through set-theoretic methods. The analysis shows that a militarily strong target’s serious misbehavior through grave human rights violations triggers EU action in the form of economic sanctions, however, only in combination with two conditions: first, the EU reacts to a misbehavior through the adoption of an economic design when the United States imposes economic sanctions, too (path 1); second, the salience of a target’s conflict triggers an economic design of sanctions in case of grave human rights violations (path 2).
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-022-09458-0#citeas
“Striving for trade not peace? Revisiting trade-peace and trade-security nexuses in the EU’s trade policy strategy amidst the Russia-Ukraine war”, by Maryna Rabinovuch, Journal of European Integration 45 (7): 1075-1098 (2023).
This article dismantles the popular myth that the strategic framing of the EU’s trade with Russia following the 2014 ‘Ukraine crisis’ was nurtured by the liberal peace logic, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine should be thus seen as an ultimate failure of a ‘liberal peace’ hypothesis. To challenge this argument, we provide a nuanced conceptualization of the trade-peace and trade-security nexuses in EU trade policy and apply it to the case of EU-Russia trade relations (2014–2022). We find that the trade-peace and trade-security nexuses in the EU’s framing of its approach to Russia has been shaped by the bargaining and restrictive logics. Though the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine does not immediately refute the liberal peace theory, we call for the critical reconsideration of the connections between peace and security concerns in the strategic and legal framing of the EU’s trade policy.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2023.2232940
“The European Union’s transformation after Russia’s attack on Ukraine”, by Mitchell A. Orenstein, Journal of European Integration 45 (3): 333-342 (2023).
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 shattered any remaining illusions that closer economic integration with Europe would lead Russia, over time, towards democracy at home and peaceful coexistence with its neighbors abroad. It reinvigorated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and jolted the European Union (EU) into cutting off trade and energy ties with Russia, while welcoming a massive flow of refugees from war-torn Ukraine. It empowered Central and East European states in the EU, reignited enlargement debates, and shifted NATO and Europe’s borders to the north and east. Introducing a special issue, this article argues that the EU’s peace through integration strategy has always existed side by side with NATO’s peace through strength approach, in a broader European project with blurred boundaries. This war may force the EU to solidify its borders between an internal zone of integration and an external zone of strength projection and geopolitics.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2023.2183393
“Ontological security, crisis and political myth: the Ukraine war and the European Union”, by Vincent Della Sala, Journal of European Integration 45 (3): 361-375 (2023).
The paper’s aim is two-fold. First, it wants to explore if and how the war in Ukraine has exposed tension in the EU’s foundational myth as a political community forged in crisis with the aim to bring peace and stability to Europe. Second, it highlights how the war reveals that the EU ultimately fails to be an ontological security provider for member states and Europeans. The paradox of the EU’s myth of crisis is that it, like all foundational myths, is supposed to lead to a more secure sense of self and continuity. However, the war in Ukraine is a crisis that cannot be addressed without putting into discussion the other part of the foundational myth of how integration leads to peace and how this may help to explain limits to how much the EU can do to guarantee peace and stability.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2023.2183396
“A better foundation for national security? The ethics of national risk assessments in the Nordic region”, by Kristoffer Lidén, Cooperation and Conflict 58 (1): 3-22 (2023).
Aiming at analysing all major security risks to a country, comprehensive National Risk Assessments (NRAs) can be used as a foundation for national security policies. Doing so manifests a modernist dream of securing societies through the anticipatory governance of risks. Yet, this dream resembles a nightmare of undemocratic state control in the name of security. Based on a critique of the politics of NRAs, this article offers a theoretical framework for evaluating their scientific and political credentials. Drawing on political theory of technocratic expert rule, ethical criteria of epistemic reliability and political representation are introduced to the debate. These criteria are then applied to an analysis of the NRAs of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I argue that although these NRAs are convincing correctives to the risk perceptions of politicians and civil society, they are insufficiently reliable and representative for defining the scope and priorities of national security policies at large.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367211068877
“Defence cooperation and change: How defence industry integration fosteres development of the European security community”, by Ondrej Ditrych, Tomas Kucera, Cooperation and Conflict 58 (1): 129-152 (2022).
This article situates recent initiatives to deepen security and defence cooperation in the European Union in the historical perspective. It proposes a model of constitutive relationship between the process of change in a security community and the formation of a transnational defence industry community of practice which yields positive feedback (‘productive returns’) to the security community as a broader assemblage within which it was constituted. This model is applied to the paradigmatic case of European security community that formed after the World War II (WWII). The analysis shows that the key driver for defence integration traced by means of social network analysis (SNA) in this case was economic rather than political, and for an extended period of time it developed without formal institutions. The productive return of the ‘defence industry machine’ as a distinct community of practice that was constituted through the integration process consisted in the sense of deeper belonging and a shared sense of working well together in a traditionally highly nationalised defence milieu.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221099086
“Desires, Fantasies and Hierarchies: Postcolonial Status Anxiety through Ontological Security”, by Ali Bilgic, Jordan Pilcher, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 48 (1): 3-19 (2023).
Status-seeking practices of some states from the Global South have increasingly been studied in the status literature in International Relations. The existing debates, whilst developing significant advances recently, still fail to account for and theorise both status anxieties of postcolonial states and the intrinsic relation between them and existential anxieties. This article will address this gap through utilising an ontological security perspective on status-seeking. By focusing on subjectivities (not solely on identities as conventionally done in the status literature) and introducing subject production to the process of status-seeking, this article conceptualises status in relation to identity narratives of the subject to achieve ‘wholeness’ in hierarchical social orders. This novel post-structuralist understanding of status and status-seeking through the introduction of a Lacanian theorisation of ontological security offers an alternative perspective to approaches in status debates to understand status anxieties of postcolonial states better. The conceptual discussion will be illustrated through demonstrating Turkey’s status anxiety in relation to its paid-off debt to International Monetary Fund.
https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754221086170
2022
“Lessons (to be) learned? Germany’s Zeitenwende and European security after the Russian invasion of Ukraine” by Tobias Bunde, Contemporary Security Policy 43(3): 516-530 (2022).
In Germany, the Russian war on Ukraine is widely perceived as a “Zeitenwende,” a watershed moment undermining key foreign policy beliefs. Despite mounting evidence contradicting them, German elites previously failed to adapt core beliefs regarding Russia and the use of force because these beliefs were not only deeply embedded in largely uncontested identity constructions but also shaped the definition of economic interests, which in turn made ideational adaptation more costly. Moreover, Germany’s extraordinarily beneficial geopolitical situation in the post-Cold War era meant that the country could afford not to learn. Although the “Zeitenwende” will trigger significant change, it is unclear which lessons exactly Germans will now be learning and how far that adaptation will go. Given Germany’s key position in Europe and its previous role in shaping the European and transatlantic policy toward Russia, the results of these learning processes will significantly shape the emerging European security order.
“Not so unique after all? Urgency and norms in EU foreign and security policy” by Pernille Rieker, Marianne Riddervold, Journal of European Integration, 44 (4): 459-473 (2022).
The EU Global Strategy puts ‘principled pragmatism’ at the core of EU foreign and security policy. This has also been promoted as away of closing the gap between talk and action. Still, the concept has been widely criticized and interpreted as away of making the Union’s ‘organized hypocrisy’ less glaring. By exploring key EU foreign and security policy strategies and policies implemented over the past decade, this article suggests that a certain pattern for when the EU acts normatively and when it acts strategically can be identified. While the overall ambition is still to promote a more normative policy, also when it comes at a considerable economic cost, there is a limit to how it is willing to go. Evidence suggests that when faced with a situation perceived as urgent, the EU becomes more prone to implement policies that are at odds with its own principles.
Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014, debates about its behaviour and intentions have increased significantly in the West. This article examines Russia’s strategic interests in its historically peaceful Nordic neighbourhood. It identifies and applies the classic strategy terms ends, ways and means in a 100-year perspective and asks if Russia’s military and political goals in the Nordic region have changed after 2014. Despite increased tensions and a more aggressive Russian rhetoric and behaviour, Russian strategic goals in the region are characterised by an evolving continuity and a reluctant acceptance of the current military-political status quo.
Energy security as a concept is void of meaning if not related to specific sociotechnical settings, this article argues. By bringing in insights from science and technology studies and national identity-making, we focus on how sociotechnical imaginaries of energy security in Norway and Ukraine are formative and productive for both technological development and societal discourses. This leads to diverse national narratives and strategies for providing energy security. In Norway, the imaginary transcends technical reasoning and day-to-day administration and has created a highly stable discourse seldom politicised. In Ukraine, the sociotechnical imaginary is in flux and highly politicised – if not securitised – as a new Ukrainian identity is under construction with and against energy technology and the Russian other. The article shows the benefits of understanding energy security as an interplay between societal discourses, technologies and natural resources rather than a stable end goal to be pursued.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-021-00212-4
“And now we’re facing that reality too”: Brexit, ontological security, and intergenerational anxiety in the Irish border region” by Ben Rosher, European Security, 31(1): 21-38 (2022).
Though conspicuous by its absence in debates among the British political and media establishments during the EU referendum campaign, the Irish border has been the central feature of Brexit as the implications and complications of trying to “take back control of borders” have become apparent. Drawing on focus group data gathered between 2017 and 2019 I employ ontological security theory to investigate the impact that Brexit is having on residents and communities living in the central Irish border region. In particular, I draw on the work of David Carr to explore the social role of memory and narrative in ontological (in)security and how this has manifested in the border region throughout the Brexit process. I find that the uncertainties generated by Brexit have caused border residents to draw on anxiety-filled memories and narratives from the securitised border of the pre-Good Friday Agreement era which they then project onto and vicariously through the next generation who, in turn, embody these anxieties, creating intergenerational ontological insecurity. Brexit has reintroduced, if not the physical border, the psychological borders of the past.
EU Digital Sovereignty has emerged as a priority for the EU Cyber Agenda to build free and safe, yet resilient cyberspace. In a traditional regulatory fashion, the EU has therefore sought to gain more control over third country-based digital intermediaries through legislative solutions regulating its internal market. Although potentially effective in shielding EU citizens from data exploitation by internet giants, this protectionist strategy tells us little about the EU’s ability to develop Digital Sovereignty, beyond its capacity to react to the external tech industry. Given the growing hybridisation of warfare, building on the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the security domain, leadership in advancing AI-related technology has a significant impact on countries’ defence capacity. By framing AI as the intrinsic functioning of algorithms, data mining and computational capacity, we question what tools the EU could rely on to gain sovereignty in each of these dimensions of AI. By focusing on AI from an EU Foreign Policy perspective, we conclude that contrary to the growing narrative, given the absence of a leading AI industry and a coherent defence strategy, the EU has few tools to become a global leader in advancing standards of AI beyond its regulatory capacity.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2022.2101885
“Analysing the EU’s collective securitisation moves towards China” by Chen, X., Gao, X, Asia Europe Journal, 20: 195–216 (2022)
This research responds to an increasing volume of scholarly literature unpacking the recent dynamics of EU foreign policy discourses and practices vis-à-vis China. Drawing on the theoretical approach of collective securitisation, this article shows that EU foreign policy towards China since the mid-2010s has witnessed increasing collective securitisation moves directed at multiple policy frames, including Asian regional security frame, economic security frame, political security frame and information and technology and cybersecurity frame. The EU’s attempts to securitise China as an existential threat across multiple issue areas have been triggered by a combination of long-term trends and specific sets of precipitating events, which contributed to galvanising the EU’s collective securitising discourses and subsequent policy initiatives. However, this research finds that the EU’s securitising moves and relevant speech acts have not resulted in a coherent audience response among the EU member states. The divergent views held by the EU’s internal audience on whether China should be perceived as an existential threat have hampered the implementation of the EU’s collective policy outputs.
“‘Shifting Borders of European (In)Securities: Human Security, Border (In)Security and Mobility in Security’” by Panebianco, S., Tallis, B., International Politics 59: 399–409 (2022).
Over the past decade, the European Union (EU) has faced a severe migration crisis that brought to the fore the issues of borders and security—including security at borders and the borders of security. This article introduces the special issue ‘Shifting Borders of European (In)Securities: Human Security, Border (In)Security and Mobility in Security’ going beyond the traditional dichotomy vision of borders, namely inclusion versus exclusion (Panebianco 2016). It sets the scene to examine the proliferating insecurities at and in reference to EU borders, suggesting a migrant-centred understanding of human security and mobility and its complex relations to—and tensions with—more traditional conceptions of border security. In particular, this introductory paper opens up the possibility of disentangling the complexity of (in)securities and (im)mobilities. Like the rest of the special issue, it shows that state security and human security are not mutually exclusive and can in fact be mutually reinforcing, even if this unfortunately remains the exception rather than the norm in practice. The paper (and the special issue) seeks to elaborate a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the challenges of shifting borders of European (in)securities, thus shedding light on complex migration phenomena and contributing to better understanding of these issues and what can be done about them in, but also beyond, academia.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-022-00375-y
“The rising fear of terrorism and the emergence of a European security governance space: citizen perceptions and EU counterterrorism cooperation” by Thomas Henökl & Tor Georg Jakobsen, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 30(3): 536-551 (2022).
Among a wide range of challenges, EU member states have been facing a growing threat from terrorism in the recent years. The primary responsibility for combating terrorism lies with each individual member state, although the threat is becoming increasingly cross-border and diverse. Regardless of whether terrorism poses a real or perceived threat to the states’ and citizens’ security, public opinion is one important force behind the extensive counterterrorism efforts undertaken in Europe. In this article, we explore the influence of public opinion on EU policy within the security domain in the period 2005–19. We investigate the relationship between the number of attacks carried out on EU territory and citizens’ increased concern for terrorist attacks, as well as the attention given to this topic by EU decision-makers. Based on data from Eurobarometer, the Global Terrorism Database, and evidence from official documents, we perform an analysis of the connection between public perception and anti-terrorism policy coordination in the EU. The results of this investigation point to increasing levels of collective securitization and an ever-stronger focus on security and counterterrorism in the European Union. Our findings are related to policy formation in the EU.
“Minilateral Cooperation in the EU’s Post-Brexit Common Security and Defence Policy: Germany and the Visegrád Countries” by Jana Urbanovská, Martin Chovančík &Stanislava Brajerčíková, Europe-Asia Studies, 74(3): 402-425 (2022).
Post-Brexit referendum EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) developments have called for an enhancement of Germany’s leadership in the CSDP. Given fears of German dominance, its self-limitation and diverging French visions, Germany is steered towards building deeper alliances and partnerships. Minilateral cooperation offers unique benefits to the current German leadership dilemma yet remains understudied outside of Western defence cooperation. Based on three representative areas of the CSDP, the article examines the progress and viability of minilateral CSDP cooperation between Germany and Visegrád countries and finds clear indications of growing post-2016 minilateral cooperation with this particular region.
Autumn 2021
“Not so unique after all? Urgency and norms in EU foreign and security policy”, by Pernille Rieker, Marianne Riddervold, Journal of European Integration, published online 21 September 2021.
Abstract: The EU Global Strategy puts ‘principled pragmatism’ at the core of EU foreign and security policy. This has also been promoted as away of closing the gap between talk and action. Still, the concept has been widely criticized and interpreted as away of making the Union’s ‘organized hypocrisy’ less glaring. By exploring key EU foreign and security policy strategies and policies implemented over the past decade, this article suggests that a certain pattern for when the EU acts normatively and when it acts strategically can be identified. While the overall ambition is still to promote a more normative policy, also when it comes at a considerable economic cost, there is a limit to how it is willing to go. Evidence suggests that when faced with a situation perceived as urgent, the EU becomes more prone to implement policies that are at odds with its own principles.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2021.1977293
“The impact of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict on military expenditures of European states: security alliances or geography?”, by Jan Kofroň, Jakub Stauber, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, published online 1 August 2021.
Abstract: The Russo-Ukrainian conflict has shaken the European post-Cold War security order. In response, European leaders started to talk about the need to strengthen the defense of European nations. This article quantitatively analyses changes in military expenditures of European states in the aftermath of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. There are significant differences in changes in ME´s of European states, which however cannot be explained by freeriding within NATO, the relative power of individual states, within-state variables or by membership in the EU. Instead, our results indicate that it was the distance from Russia which drove changes. Interestingly, while traditional operationalization of distance based on fly distance from capital-to-capital showed strong explanatory power, our operationalization based on road distance fared even better. Our results indicate that even in the 21st century distance remains an important geopolitical factor.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2021.1958201
“The rising fear of terrorism and the emergence of a European security governance space: citizen perceptions and EU counterterrorism cooperation”, by Thomas Henökl, Tor Georg Jakobsen, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, published online 1 August 2021.
Abstract: Among a wide range of challenges, EU member states have been facing a growing threat from terrorism in the recent years. The primary responsibility for combating terrorism lies with each individual member state, although the threat is becoming increasingly cross-border and diverse. Regardless of whether terrorism poses a real or perceived threat to the states’ and citizens’ security, public opinion is one important force behind the extensive counterterrorism efforts undertaken in Europe. In this article, we explore the influence of public opinion on EU policy within the security domain in the period 2005–19. We investigate the relationship between the number of attacks carried out on EU territory and citizens’ increased concern for terrorist attacks, as well as the attention given to this topic by EU decision-makers. Based on data from Eurobarometer, the Global Terrorism Database, and evidence from official documents, we perform an analysis of the connection between public perception and anti-terrorism policy coordination in the EU. The results of this investigation point to increasing levels of collective securitization and an ever-stronger focus on security and counterterrorism in the European Union. Our findings are related to policy formation in the EU.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2021.1958202
“Regional security dialogues in Europe and in Asia: The role of Track 1.5 forums in the practice of international security”, by Anna Longhini, Erin Zimmerman, European Journal of International Security 6 (4): 481–502, November 2021.
Abstract: The term regional security dialogue brings to mind state-organised conferences and events; however, an under-appreciated subset of such dialogues are organised by non-state actors that have unique formal aspects. These quasi-formal dialogues operate alongside, and sometimes in competition to, state-sanctioned processes. Why do some of these forums appear to be more effective at fostering regional dialogue than strictly formal or informal processes with the same goals? Drawing from heterogenous discourse approaches, we address this question by identifying and expanding the concept of the quality of discursive space, as a key feature for the success of security dialogues. We then apply this concept to two of the most successful so-called Track 1.5 security dialogues: the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Europe and the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) in Asia. We analyse these cases using a mix of interviews with participants and organisers, participant observation, and public outputs with the aim of improving the understanding of the role and impact of Track 1.5 diplomacy in the practice of international security. Our findings highlight that it is what we call the quality of discursive space, as a mix of different components in this space, which differentiates effective dialogues from mere policy ‘talk shops’.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/eis.2021.14
“The risks of NATO’s maladaptation”, by Thierry Tardy, European Security 30 (1): 24–42, 2021.
Abstract: This article deals with the process of adaptation that NATO has gone through over the last decade. It contends that while seeking congruence with its environment, NATO is facing a risk of maladaptation that pertains to its positioning as a defence or security actor. On the one hand, NATO has adapted by going back to the basics of deterrence and defence in the new Cold War context provoked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea; in the meantime though, this move has created tensions for the organisation as it had to simultaneously cope with an increasingly diverse security environment that tends to pull NATO away from a narrow defence-focused agenda. Whether NATO does defence or embraces a broader security agenda reflects dilemmas and trade-offs that are at the heart of the Alliance’s quest for relevance. This article explores NATO’s adaptation since 2014, unpacks the rationale, dilemmas and policy implications of the quest for congruence, and identifies vulnerabilities that the adaptation process may unintentionally lead to.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2020.1799786
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