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The EU's normative promotion is a keystone in the arch of its Foreign and Security Policy, reflected in establishing a "ring of friends" in its neighbourhood. However, the EU's normative impact in these countries is often hindered by domestic constraints. Conversely, deeper socialisation through persuasion and "learning" may advance towards the promotion of EU norms better. By tracing the "learning" component of the EU's external perceptions in its Eastern (Ukraine) and Southern (Israel and Palestine) neighbourhoods, this paper elaborates upon the receptiveness of EU norms. Considering the specific attention that the ENP draws towards the support of civil society, this paper focuses on "learning" narratives of EU norms among civil society elites in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine as the key targets of EU assistance – with a particular focus on various conceptualisations of learning in the learning process. Notwithstanding perceptions of the EU as a normative power, we find that the learning processes remain too complex to be captured within a single theoretical framework. Whereas communicative rationality implies learning about each other's identities through rational arguing, our analysis demonstrates that identity performance is one of the most emotive and crucial factors in perceptions of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various papers published within the issue, including one by Fotios Moustakis and Petros Violakis on the European Security and Defense Policy of the European Union, another by Stephen Cimbala on the post-Cold War strategic nuclear deterrence in the United States and Russia, and one by Dominic Scott and Mark Pyman on corruption in military defense.

The EU is clearly in the process of developing an external dimension to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). This paper focuses on ex. Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) provisions. These developments pose specific legal basis issues for the EU, given its complex EU–member state legal relationship, and the inter-institutional balance, all reflected in the treaty framework post-Lisbon. New Court of Justice rulings are now emerging which will assist in this issue. Equally the approach to be taken in developing these relationships will be crucial. This paper proposes the adoption of an Onuf style constructivism in order to best capture the reality of the process that is developing, and has developed for the ex. PJCCM measures internally. This then needs to be allied with a constitutionalism model to ensure a balanced development of all three aspects of the AFSJ. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ongoing disputes between Russia and its neighbouring states vis-a-vis the critical transmission of primary energy resources to the remainder of the European continent has led Brussels to place the matter squarely within the scope of European Union (EU) energy security policy. EU-Russia energy negotiations have more often than not displayed patterns of rationalism with an ingrained cost-benefit orientation. Notwithstanding, this incidence has been complicated by the reality of changing geo-political constellations in Central and Eastern Europe in the course of the past two decades. This has influenced the political landscape of EU-Russia negotiations concerning projects under construction, as well as proposed others on the continent, such as Nord Stream (bypassing Belarus and Poland) and South Stream (bypassing Ukraine). Given such considerations, we observe that the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2009 has shown greater leniency towards Ukraine, Belarus and Poland than the general consensus in EU-Russia energy talks maintained in Brussels would have otherwise provided for. We also observe that France and Germany are driven by a greater rational self-interest in their conduct of EU energy security policy. In consequence, Russia's awareness of the divergent dispositions amongst the EU Member States becomes the dependent variable in our analysis. Thus, the primary question that this paper poses is whether rational cost-benefit orientations in individual EU Member States can lead to collective bargaining outcomes in EU-Russia energy negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation has often been described as a key weakness affecting European Union (EU) counter-terrorism. However, this view is often adopted as a given and there has not been so far a systematic examination of the degree to which this represents an obstacle to the effectiveness of the EU response. This paper aims to contribute towards this goal through the use of primary sources in the study of the legal transposition of counter-terror instruments into national law, a key stage in the implementation process. It shows the presence of major implementation delays in this policy sector but, importantly, also significant cross-national variation with regards transposition failure associated with the administrative endowment of the individual member states. Furthermore, the mechanisms deployed by the Union to encourage a fluid implementation of European measures are critically evaluated and the potential impact in the process of the institutional transformations brought about by Lisbon is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1990 draftees of the Austrian army have been stationed at the border to Hungary, and later to Slovakia, as a reaction to both the system change in Eastern Europe as well as the expected increase in cross-border crime. This so-called 'support deployment' was initially planned to last no longer than 10 weeks, but soon it became apparent that the military's border security deployment could also serve other ends than mere security goals. Since then it has been prolonged numerous times. In scrutinising the strategies of the various actors involved, the paper shows that the support deployment can be considered an act of securitisation and is as such almost entirely decoupled from the actual policing of the Schengen internal border. Furthermore, it argues to 'bring the audience back in' and to recognise the audience's agency in the analysis of securitisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has developed a normative approach to security over the past 15 years, which is strongly rooted in the concept of human security. This paper examines where human security is situated in the contemporary discourse on security and critically assesses both the concept itself and its application in European security policy. It argues that the approach has weaknesses in concept and practice which potentially undermine the normative aspirations of European security, particularly with regard to political agency, the universalisation of liberal values, legitimacy, sovereignty, the notion of security as a collective good and the external as well as internal dimensions of the EU as a security community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of transatlantic security relations after 9/11 remains the subject of extensive scrutiny. Academics and practitioners alike continue to seek an explanation for the stark divergences in national security policies that transpired in the period between 2001 and 2003. This paper argues that the existence of national strategic cultures in shaping states security policies and perspectives towards the use of force in particular is crucial to any comprehensive understanding of recent developments in transatlantic security. Furthermore, only when the perspectives of states from Central and Eastern Europe are brought more centrally into analysis can a clearer prognosis of the longer term consequences for both transatlantic security and Europe’s own ambitions to become a secruity actor be reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the process of norm localisation in the security sector by analysing the context, format and functions of national security strategies published by the Visegrád countries between 1990 and 2020. After the end of the cold war, the "Europeanisation" of the security policy of Central European took place, which included the publication of Western-style national security strategies. Nevertheless, due to national and regional particularities, such documents serve specific political and communication functions, signifying that Visegrád states localised the practice of issuing national security strategies instead of merely copying them. This process led to the diminishing practical value of such documents at the expense of their communication role in terms of belonging and hedging. The article tracks these developments through the three waves of Central European national security strategies between 1990 and 2020 through the analysis of their political context, aims and specific attributes based on various criteria. Results of the research indicate that the functions of national security strategies varied in different stages of the norm localisation process, which questions the traditional method of comparing explicit strategies through content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of European Union (EU) competences in the field of external security in the last decade has produced a substantial increase in the number of EU institutions and bureaucratic actors engaged in the planning and management of these policies. Moreover, the expansion of competences in such a sovereign sensitive area comes up against the persistent intergovernmental nature of the security sector. This has resulted, on the one hand, in a complex institutional architecture with heavy demands in terms of coordination, and on the other hand, in a stark differentiation and stratification of the legal regimes with a potential to impact on policy outcomes. This state of uncertainty is particularly relevant when looking at relations with countries bordering the Union, as the long-standing web of interactions there has developed a more complex institutional environment. While most of the scholarly literature focuses on single institutional sectors or policies (Common Security and Defence Policy, European Neighbourhood Policy, or the external side of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice), this study seeks to address the issue with a comprehensive analysis of the institutional framework that has emerged in the last decade, more notably, since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. The article provides, first, an overview of the EU’s institutional actors responsible for security policies in the regions bordering the EU, and second, an examination of the different mechanisms established to address the coordination issue. Finally, this study will argue that the traditional military dimension is but one, and certainly not the most developed, of the security instruments employed by the EU. At another level, it will be argued that the shift of focus from the military to other security tools has altered the institutional balance in the security sector, substantially adding to the relative influential weight of the Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The democratic foundations of European integration in the foreign and defence realm are increasingly being debated. This article looks at the question of democratic legitimacy from one particular angle, by examining public opinion as measured in Eurobarometer surveys between 1989 and 2009. Based on reflections about the relation between polling results and wider questions of democracy, it examines three aspects of public opinion: general support for a common foreign and a common defence policy; differences among support rates in EU member states; and what roles Europeans would prefer for European armed forces. It turns out that general support for a common foreign policy is high, whereas the desirability of a common defence policy is much more contested. Moreover, citizens across Europe would prefer European armed forces to take on traditional tasks, as territorial defence. An EU defence policy that goes beyond strict intergovernmentalism and is directed towards protecting international law and universal human rights would thus require a significant communicative effort to become accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What are the prospects for trilateral concord among Britain, France and Germany in terms of defence policies? Would more institutionalised links among them lead to more convergence of their defence policies? To answer these interrogations, this article investigates the relation between policy convergence and institutionalised cooperation, in particular by studying whether and when one is a prerequisite to the other. First, this article examines the extent to which these countries' defence policies have converged since the end of the cold war based on several indicators: their attitudes towards international forums, their defence budgets, the structure of their armed forces and their willingness to use force. Second, we study each of the bilateral relations between the three states to qualitatively analyse their degree of institutionalisation and the convergence of their defence policies. This article concludes that contrary to the arguments of many discussions, think-tank reports and political actors, there is no evidence that institutionalised cooperation leads to policy convergence as far as defence is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Security agendas in Europe have gone through some striking modifications over the last couple of decades, reflecting changes in both the nature and the scope of post-Cold War security concerns. While the traditional security concerns have not completely disappeared, new sources of insecurity and instability have emerged out of the post-Cold War politico-strategic environment in Europe's peripheries. Turkey sits at the nexus of this hitherto marginalized theatre of risks and challenges. Thus, while investigating this new and broader security environment for Europe and then locating Turkey's role and place in such milieu, this article argues that Turkey has a critical role to play in this endeavour of achieving security and stability in both Europe and its surrounding regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting on the results presented in articles in this special issue, European leaders should take greater account of external perceptions in crafting the European Union's strategic narrative and guiding its actions. Failure to do so has impaired external policies like the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership. Leaders emerging from the Arab uprisings perceived the EU as complicit with their countries' former anciens régimes and Russian leaders see EU support for democracy and the market economy in former Soviet states as duplicitous and instrusive. Awareness of such perceptions should be filtered into EU decision-making, without validating views that European officials and diplomats consider misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue seeks to better understand the role of communication and perception in EU crisis diplomacy. In a recent Special Issue in this journal, Catarina Kinnvall, Ian Manners and Jennifer Mitzen argue that, " ... the greatest security challenge facing people across Europe is not physical, despite the threats of Putin and ISIS, but is a sense of fear and anxiety over their daily lives" [2018. Introduction to 2018 Special Issue of European Security: "Ontological (in)security in the European Union". European security, 27 (3), 249–265]. We take an interdisciplinary approach to widen the scope of studies on European security and offer new avenues for further research into how citizens in the EU's neighbourhood understand the security challenges they face and the role the EU plays in addressing these. Through this, we aim to bring theoretical and methodological innovation to understanding the role of the EU as an external actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the EU has expanded its common security focus in the 1990s, this important regional organisation has become the most frequent mediator in low-level civil conflicts worldwide. Under what conditions is the European Union (EU) likely to become involved in mediation in civil conflicts? Is the participation in mediation only explained by the EU's bias toward its near abroad, or is the EU more strategic? Some scholars have suggested that the EU's regional bias for its near abroad is the key explanation for the onset of EU mediation, but we propose that the reality of EU mediation presents a more nuanced story. We posit three explanations based on mediator bias: regional bias, economic bias, and normative bias. Overall, we argue that the EU will mediate in civil conflicts that are in its near abroad, but also where the EU has economic bias and where the EU can exercise its normative power in highly intractable conflicts. We test our hypotheses using statistical analysis of the UCDP low-level civil conflicts data from 1993 to 2004 and Civil War Mediation data from 1974 to 2005. We find strong support for our hypotheses, determining key factors that reveal the EU's strategic onset of mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an update on publications related to European security. Paper on the Russian military doctrine; Essays on the crisis in Kosovo, Serbia.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has rarely been considered in scholarship on gender and security, even though it was one of the regional security organisations whose gender policy predated the United Nations Security Council’s call for more international attention to issues related to women, peace and security in October 2000. Based on an analysis of official OSCE documents and on semi-structured interviews, we trace the integration of gender issues in the OSCE and explore the rationale behind and the challenges associated with it. We identify two phases of gender policy change in the OSCE and show how the integration of UNSCR 1325 brought about an expansion of OSCE gender policy from an exclusive focus on “soft” security issues towards increased inclusion of gender in the area of “hard” security. Drawing on historical and feminist institutionalism, we argue that reform coalitions were crucial for the policy changes in the OSCE but that they encountered institutional and ideational barriers, which hampered implementation of the gender policy. In light of rising opposition, our analysis warns of a backlash that might jeopardise current achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If a European organisation decides to deploy a military force in Mali or a police mission in Afghanistan, member states probably believe that collective security is a public good that benefits them all. But who will lead the mission? Who will staff it? Who will pay for it? Who will risk casualties? While rational-choice theorists expect little burden sharing, constructivists expect a great deal more insofar as normative pressures are brought to bear on governments. The problem is that it is hard to find countries that systematically eschew their responsibilities or, contrariwise, systematically contribute their fair share out of a sense of moral obligation. In this article, we analyse burden sharing as an anchoring practice, shedding light on the social logic of burden sharing rather than abstract interests or norms. Established after the end of the Second World War, the field of European security has given birth to a “community of security practice” around the more or less routine task of determining national contributions to crisis management operations. Based on interviews with practitioners from the UK, France, Germany, Norway and Ireland, we analyse the impact of intersubjectivity, power and strategic culture on the practice of burden sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

European security is at a critical juncture and many have called for a more coherent and efficient response, involving both the EU and NATO. However, the primary tool for EU–NATO cooperation, “Berlin Plus”, has been stuck in a political quagmire since the mid-2000s, making a lot of scholars to conclude that this cooperation is obsolete and outdated. This article is challenging this view by analysing a range of informal but regular interaction patterns that have emerged. Using practice theory, it sheds new light on and explores how EU and NATO staff at all levels engage in informal practices on various sites in headquarters in Brussels and in field operations. A study of EU–NATO cooperation as practice focuses on the everyday, patterned production of security as well as what makes action possible, such as (tacit) practical knowledge and shared “background” knowledge (education, training, and experience). The article also discusses the extent to which shared repertoires of practice may evolve into loose communities of practice that cut across organisational and professional boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In June 2015 High Representative Mogherini presented her strategic assessment The European Union in a changing global environment as the express point of reference for the new EU Global Strategy. Grounded in the premise that this assessment is not simply a description of the state of the world but plays into the construction of social reality, this article sets out to understand the openings and closings of possibilities that it holds. My analysis generates a number of concrete insights, ranging from insights into the distinct nature of the challenges the EU is facing, to the discovery that there is no “existential threat” and the importance of “regions” as a guiding category. Grounded in an understanding of the world as being reflexive modern, I interpret these findings as displaying an intriguing and paradoxical interpretive disposition. On the one side, there is a notable opening towards unconventional conceptions of the world; on the other side, there is a symbolic conservation of existing EU institutions and programmes and a reproduction of modern premises. I argue that it is the first aspect that makes the document significant: Mogherini’s strategic assessment opens an important discursive space to think (European) security anew. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent developments in European security have shown the growing need for a better understanding of the security dynamics on the European continent. This article presents an analysis of differing Russian and European perceptions of European security in general, and concerning the crisis in Ukraine in particular. As much of the literature on these issues has been normatively driven, we aim to provide an impartial presentation and analysis of the dominant Russian and EU discourses. This we see as essential for investigating the potential for constructive dialogue between Russia and the EU. If simplistic assumptions about the motivations and intentions of other actors take hold in the public debate and policy analyses, the main actors may be drawn into a logic that is ultimately dangerous or counterproductive. With this article we offer a modest contribution towards discouraging such a development in Russia–EU relations. After presenting an analysis of the differing EU and Russian perceptions, we discuss the potential for dialogue between such different worldviews, and reflect on potential implications for European security. As the article shows, there are tendencies of a certain adjustment in the Union’s approach that may make a partial rapprochement between the two sides more likely. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2014, the European Union (EU) launched the sixth review of the Athena mechanism that finances the common costs of military operations launched in the framework of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In the run up to the review, there were expectations that it would improve financial burden sharing in CSDP operations by expanding common funding for them. However, these hopes were disappointed; the review became a diplomatic tug of war between France, the strongest supporter of expanded common funding, and the UK, its strongest opponent. In the end, France agreed to the UK's terms to ensure that the existing level of common funding would not decrease. This article analyses the Athena review from a neoclassical realist perspective. It argues that the review's outcome was due to the imbalance of influence among EU member states and the diverging preferences of their Foreign Policy Executives (FPEs). These factors caused the Athena review to remain in the hands of a small group of member states that had diverging utility expectations and ideological preferences. Thus, the article shows that a surprisingly intense burden-sharing dispute has emerged within CSDP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is perhaps the world's least-known major security organization. However, the same characteristic which puts the OSCE seemingly continually on the verge of irrelevance with respect to the other actors in European and global security is in fact what has allowed it to endure and is in fact its greatest asset. That is, the OSCE's distinct combination of modern and postmodern characteristics in both its composition and its activities allows it to create what can be called “embedded security”. Tracing the evolution of one particular set of decision-making rules embedded within a normative framework which questioned the fundamental meanings of “security”, and exploring present-day activities, this article reinterprets the OSCE in the light of this new model. In so doing, it re-contextualizes both the OSCE's origins and its contemporary relevance. Instead of a modernist, functional, rule-driven interpretation which situates the OSCE on the periphery in a crowded field, this explanation puts the OSCE at the centre of the postmodern and normative European security architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mediation efforts of the European Union (EU) Delegation in Yemen started with the uprising in 2011 which led to the conclusion of the National Dialogue Conference in 2014. This article examines the EU's understanding of mediation vis-à-vis its practice. The case of Yemen lends itself to trace EU mediation capabilities from the implementation of the “Concept on Strengthening Mediation and Dialogue Capacities” to a more systematic approach because the Mediation Support Team (MST) of the European External Action Service took office in 2011. Building on an analytical framework of mediation as a tool of EU foreign policy, this article demonstrates how EU mediation presents itself along a political and a technical dimension. The collaboration of the MST and the EU Delegation personnel in Yemen fostered an increase in mediation awareness. However, it could not develop its full potential as the UN Special Advisor sidelined the EU and other members of the Group of Ten Ambassadors through his proactive approach. Despite those difficulties of standing up to established actors in the field, this study argues that EU mediation is about balancing its political and technical dimension. For now, the political seems to outweigh the craft of mediation in the case of Yemen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the role of narratives in European Union (EU) external relations in the revised European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and systematically explores how they operate in practice in the context of the EU's border management practices vis-à-vis the “southern borderlands”, in particular with respect to their inclusionary and exclusionary potential. Key EU documents and statements by EU agents, released throughout the first three years of Arab uprisings and pertaining to the revised ENP, will be subjected to a thorough examination which highlights four observations: first, in spite of the fact that the revised ENP is rooted in several narratives, some nevertheless dominate over others; second, the simultaneous presence of and recourse to different narratives contribute to an increase, rather than a decrease, of uncertainty in the EU's southern borderlands; third, despite a multitude of narratives which serve to legitimize EU action in the framework of the revised ENP, the latter perpetuates the logics of its predecessor by generating benefits mainly for the EU itself; fourth, that the first three years of the revised ENP have in practice demonstrated that an imbalance exists between on the one hand the original acceptance of the narratives by EU stakeholders and on the other hand their willingness to abide by them and fill them with life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The US billion dollars investments in cyber security are creating a securitisation of cyberspace. What has happened meanwhile in Europe? The argument is threefold. First, cyber threats were raised to the national threat level in Germany (2006), France (2008) and the UK (2008), but the justifications put forward for such an upgrade did not hold, as well as invested resources at that point in time. Second, cyber security strategy followed up this upgrade and designed a framework to tackle the threat that was found coherent with the assessment of the respective national security strategies. Third, cyber insecurity stemmed from criminals operating in cyberspace. Therefore, deterring criminals should have been at the core of tackling cyber insecurity but the defence strategies of France, Germany and the UK were instead focused on mitigating the effects of cyber attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Southern Energy Corridor (SEC), which aims to link Caspian Basin and potentially Middle East gas supplies to Europe, is one of the EU's six priority axes of energy infrastructures. Drawing on the external governance literature, the article provides an analysis of the EU's efforts in the wider Black Sea area to increase its energy security. It concludes that despite difficult domestic and geopolitical obstacles, the EU is pushing forward its objective to establish the SEC. However, the EU's institutionalised governance, with the incentives derived from close cooperation, has been a necessary condition of impact, but not sufficient. The SEC builds upon the east-west pipelines supported by the USA in order to prevent the Russian control over the Caspian Basin supplies. If the SEC is possible it is mainly because of the path-dependent processes created by those pipelines, which linked the international position of Azerbaijan and Georgia to their transit role between the Caspian Sea and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has the European Union been so little involved in South Caucasian pipeline politics in the last two decades? Deconstructing the European Union (EU) around the Caspian hydrocarbons transportation network, this article tries to demonstrate how European beliefs toward Russia prevented further EU involvement in the South Caucasus. Until the 2006 Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis, most of the European actors gave more importance to the EU-Russian partnership than to the relations with the South Caucasian states. But the rising concerns over Russia as a reliable energy partner have led to a reconfiguration of the European exchanges with the South Caucasus. Since 2006, the energy cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan and Georgia has considerably increased, to such an extent that the former is about to become a central component of the Caspian hydrocarbons transportation network. Despite the division among member states and inside the European Commission, this increasing cooperation is especially vivid regarding the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor. The decrease of confidence between Russia and the EU has thus paved the way for further involvement in pipeline politics in the South Caucasus, leading to a new definition of European energy security in Russian 'Near Abroad'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With criminal networks active in both Russia and the European Union (EU) Member States, the common space of internal security is a key component in building a partnership. Boosting personal contacts, counteracting illegal migration and the visa facilitation are steps forward; while the prospect of a visa-free regime appears unclear. Work on the road map should obviously be continued. Russia's and the EU interests do not just coincide, these are strategic interests. Still, detailed analysis of the road map demonstrates that one can still speak rather about intensification of cooperation than about a common space. To arrive at a new stage of partnership and start building a common space a certain change in approach and mentality must be achieved. It would seem logical to include the main principles of the common internal space in the framework part of the EU-Russia new treaty and supplement it with specific agreements in every field of cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the lack of cooperation in other issue areas, EU-Russia migration cooperation has been fruitful to the present. The internal security driven EU migration policy towards third countries has so far led to the conclusion of readmission and visa facilitation agreements as policy outputs in Russia. This article looks at the patterns of policy convergence between the EU and Russia in light of the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice in the fields of irregular and regular migration. It claims that Russia's leverage vis-a-vis the Union shaped the migration policy output, in which the visa facilitation regime was introduced as an incentive to readmission. Finally, it stresses the role of Russia in shaping the EU external dimension towards Eastern European countries, once the readmission-visa facilitation nexus has been institutionalised to all the countries in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the coming into force of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Union (EU) annunciated what one could term an 'inclusionist approach' to security whereby this policy framework was based on supposedly joint commitments by all parties concerned to 'cooperative security'. However, EU actions on the ground in the south have shown that, despite good intentions, such cooperative security endeavours have, thus far, hardly materialised. The result instead is an 'exclusionist' policy, where the reduction of illegal migration from the south takes top priority in EU security discourse. Post-9/11, in the policy area of 'counter-terrorism' measures, the EU likewise demarcates 'liberal zones of civilisation' from 'illiberal' ones, leaving the dirty work of counter terrorism to countries such as Egypt and Morocco. In terms of governmentality, this may be described as a 'surveillance and control' approach to security: therefore, it is argued here that the EU, through its governance model, is actually enabling further in-security and in-stability in the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's (EU) counter-terrorism strategy has been particularly dynamic, developing as a result of 'crises' and subsequent post-crisis narrations. The events of 11 September 2001, and the Madrid and London bombings have proved to provide moments of punctuation from which policy evolution and institutionalisation has followed. As a result of such crises, the EU has increasingly regarded terrorism as a direct challenge to the Union's role as a security actor and sought to institutionalise a diverse range of security governance technologies across its multiple pillars. Such an approach is noticeable for its qualitative difference compared to EU strategy pursued throughout the end of the twentieth century, and demonstrates an increased willingness for the EU to assert its role in the world. Yet, what is highly noticeable from the EU strategy and the proliferation of security governance technologies is the manner in which the EU has securitised 'terrorism' in the pursuit of internal, external and normative objectives. As a consequence, the EU has inflated the threat posed by terrorism, and increasingly attempted to 'Europeanise' its response. Evident in such a strategy however, is the manner in which counter-terrorism practices can generate greater insecurity inside and outside of the Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at analysing different, partly overlapping and partly competing European security discourses that have emerged on the Iranian nuclear issue since 2003. Three main discursive themes have been singled out exemplifying the main identity representations of Iran and Europe, the main stances towards Iran and the representations of the nature of European foreign policy. Over the years, the coercive-securitisation discourse has become hegemonic over democracy promotion and cultural diplomacy-inspired discourses and European policies have consistently followed suit. In terms of security governance, the European Union (EU) has created a format for negotiations, which has undergone subsequent enlargements, consistent with its securitised but multilateral discourses. While the nature of the collegial security governance espoused has brought positive effects in terms of reinforcing the EU's own identity as an international actor both inside and outside, the resilience of the first discursive theme throughout the process despite other international actors' dissonance signals that a more comprehensive and inclusive discourse towards the Iranian nuclear issue has failed to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the changing nature of security governance in Northern Europe since the end of the Cold War. Prior to enlargement in 2004 European Union (EU) involvement in the region was limited and cautious, with security governance driven predominantly by regional actors. At the same time, the connection between 'security' and projects of 'regional cooperation' was complex and largely interdependent. Since 2004 the EU has become more engaged in the region, most recently through its new Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region via which the north is conceptualised as a possible test case for broader conceptions of regional governance in Europe. The article argues that such developments raise significant questions, not only for the future and nature of regional security conceptions in the north, but also in respect of how the EU conceptualises itself in relation to security more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central aim of this article is to discuss the question of how we can understand and explain the European Union (EU) as a security actor - in essence, to elaborate on the current literature on security governance in order to provide a more theoretically driven analysis of the EU in security. Our contention is that whilst the current literature on security governance in Europe is conceptually rich, there still remains somewhat of a gap between those that do 'security governance' and those that focus on 'security' per se. We argue that a synergy or at least a conversation between these two literatures is required in order to enrich further the study of the EU as global-regional security actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a methodological approach to analyse the logic of security in the European Union (EU) as an inter-subjective construction. Security is established when discursive practices take place at the interplay of three different fields: (1) EU identity constructions; (2) the perception of challenges as security relevant; and (3) constructions of security practices and hence discourses on governance and governmentality. When discursive practices make cross-references between these fields they construct the logic of security. The empirical section applies this method in order to analyse the EU's logic of security at the turn of the twenty-first century. Understanding the dynamic effects at play between situations of under-development and conflict led not only to the construction of the need to implement civilian as well as military capabilities at the EU level, but this dynamic is also central to understanding the EU's way of approaching international terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon has raised new expectations in the area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ). The extension of co-decision increases the capacity of the European Parliament (EP) to have an influence on decision-making. This article engages with securitisation theories in order to analyse the evolution of the AFSJ as well as the role of its main actors in the securitisation process. It evaluates the past role of the EP as well as the recent changes introduced by the extension of co-decision in order to establish whether it will become a new securitising actor or will have the potential for de-securitisation of the agenda. The macro-institutional changes in the Treaty of Lisbon indicate that the EP will have opportunities to de-securitise, although the emphasis on EU citizens' rights introduced in the Stockholm programme offers it a chance to appeal to domestic audiences at the expense of more diffuse issues such as immigration and asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars may rightly claim the European Union's (EU) area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) has become one of the most significant developments in the European integration process. The Lisbon Treaty (LT) has the potential to push the AFSJ towards tremendous growth, and has provided the policy area with instruments that were unthinkable after the third pillar was created during the Maastricht Treaty negotiations. This article investigates the role of the European Commission in the process of constructing an 'AFSJ'. It argues that the Commission (through alliances with other institutional actors) managed to incrementally contribute to this shift in political norms. This shift derived from the policy-making level from 1999 onwards. It manifested itself specifically during the negotiations of the Constitutional Treaty (CT) and the subsequent re-negotiation of the LT. Here, the Commission acted with the support and the use of other supranational actors during the Convention, without which this result would have been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Firstly, the article will deal with the main advances of the CT which resulted in the LT. Subsequently, the role of the Commission and other EU institutional actors will be examined, resulting in an overall evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lisbon Treaty's depillarisation of justice and home affairs (JHA) cooperation represents a major break from the past. It opens the way for the full involvement of the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, an involvement that is bound to influence the substantive scope, and perhaps liberalise, legal and policy output in the years ahead. A different form of cooperation in area of freedom, security and justice institutionally and substantively is digging out its space within the present, security-oriented and traditionally executive-driven architecture. The Stockholm Programme and the proposed Action Plan are a reflection of this. Present in them are aspects of the Hague Programme and the logic of control and surveillance. But there also exist vessels of less ideology-driven policies, pragmatic responses to JHA challenges and respect for citizens' rights, human rights and the rule of law. Whether the latter paradigm, which is wrapped up within the logic of security, remains confined and crammed in the next five years or will be given room to grow remains to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union counter-terrorist financing (EU-CTF) regime has experienced significant developments since 2001. This article builds on the notion of supranational policy entrepreneurship (SPE) in order to investigate the post-9/11 development of EU-CTF regime. Admittedly, counter-terrorism is a policy area in which supranational institutions have rarely taken the lead, nor consistently been very active. However, the article suggests that, despite the centrality that member states maintain in the policy-making process, European institutions, notably the European Commission and the Council Secretariat, have been significant in EU-CTF cooperation. While the European Commission and the Council Secretariat both played the role of an SPE, the article outlines the different ways in which this occurred. Empirically, the article challenges an intergovernmentalist perspective by examining the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and Financial Action Task Force recommendations on countering terrorist financing at the EU level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internal abolition of borders in the European Union (EU) has created a security deficit that is supposed to be compensated by inventing a new border - the 'external frontier' - which is to protect the combined territory of the Member States. This article argues that the security deficit has not been fully compensated for due to uneven policy implementation. The overview of impending threats to the EU border security system stemming from climate change impacts and demographic pressures shows that the future holds even greater challenges to the implementation of the Schengen acquis. A new approach to border security is urgently needed. The introduction of a common European border security policy can become an adequate response to many of the otherwise imminent threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Bulgaria's NATO membership; the discussion centers on how Black Sea geopolitics have been altered due to NATO's increasing presence in the area. Furthermore, I discuss in what ways Bulgaria contributes to the NATO alliance by being a member. Finally, the article discusses the effects of the summer 2008 events in Georgia vis-a-vis Black Sea geopolitics. The geographical position and the events occurring around this Southeastern European country have made Bulgaria a strategically important country for the security future of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey-EU relations have a long and complicated history burdened with respective images about one another. On several dimensions though the completion of these relations through membership of Turkey in the EU is of immense importance. Already the Caucasus crisis has shown what a resurgent and resentful Russia may mean for European security. Efforts to keep Turkey at bay by proposing a Mediterranean union or suggestions of a 'privileged partnership' are unlikely to succeed. To better understand how membership will transform Turkey's politics and in what ways this will benefit the EU one must look at the interface between Turkey's domestic transformation of the past three decades and the changing international environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its emergence in the late 1990s, the security sector reform model has come to be accepted as an indispensable element of democratic transitions and state-building projects. Europe has been an incubator for the concept, which is rooted in the notion of human security. While the model's normative framework has reached an advanced stage of development, it has produced few clear successes, revealing a ‘conceptual–contextual divide’. Placed under new pressure due to a shift in security thinking following 11 September 2001, the model faces an identity crisis. The Afghanistan process, above all, has demonstrated the need for new debate in Europe and elsewhere on the direction and structure of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the significant growth the Area of Freedom, Justice and Security (AFSJ) has seen recently, it is still comparatively under-researched. The main argument of the article is that norms have been constructed over recent years in such a way that the AFSJ has set a project in motion which aims to create a veritable ‘European Public Order’. This change has not come overnight though, and it has been normatively constructed over the past decade. In agreement with Christiansen, it is argued that a constructivist institutionalist approach may be best suited to analyse these developments, representing one of the new ‘high points’ of European construction. Four different stages of development are examined, i.e. the pre- and post-Maastricht, the Amsterdam and Tampere, and the Constitutional Treaty phases. These developments have now significantly altered the norm of national sovereignty in EU internal security. As a consequence of this, some of the most spectacular changes in the EU can be expected in this area in the future with the new five-year ASFJ programme agreed in The Hague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2003, the European Union presented its “security strategy”, endorsed by all member states, to provide guidance for Europe’s common foreign security and defense policy. In substance, this document is not an expression of a growing strategic rift between Europe and the United States. One of the purposes it serves, however, is defining Europe’s own, separate “identity”. It reflects the increasing awareness that Europeans need to employ their power more effectively in the service of international peace and security, as much as politically possible. Disagreements on key issues remain in Europe, however, and the practical implications of the security strategy still need to be worked out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks into the problem of weapons transfers in Europe from the perspective of soft security. While the military security dimension of the issue has traditionally received sufficient coverage, weapons transfers also have important implications for soft security of the European states, both in terms of the issues they are linked to, and policy measures designed to control the proliferation of weapons. The soft security aspects of arms transfers are outlined in the introduction, while the subsequent sections look into the trends of both legal and illegal movement of weapons in and from Europe, and policy measures controlling the spread of both major conventional weapons, and light weapons and small arms at the global, regional (European), and national levels. The conclusion assesses the effectiveness of these measures, and implications thereof for European security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the national security challenges being faced by Central and Eastern Europe, as of March 2004. Reasons behind the challenges; Factors that affected efforts in developing a civic state; Impact of the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union on member countries.