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Does growing reliance on private military and security companies (PMSCs) lead to the re-configuration of the state as a security and defence actor in Europe? Building on the multiple-networks-approach in organisation theory (Padgett and Powell), the current paper develops an analytical approach for studying the rise of new organizational forms in interstitial spaces via mechanisms including extension and differentiation; fusion and hybridity; transposition and refunctionality; and multivocality. The empirical analysis focuses on the rules and practices of Vesper Group - a PMSC working closely with the Swedish government. Several findings are reported. First, a new organizational form seems to be emerging as a result of the ongoing multiple network dynamics – national defence entrepreneurial firm. This is a type of a firm different from mainstream PMSCs in that it is owned by venture capital companies from their home state and also in that it is closely associated with its respective state in terms of its personnel policies, expertise and operational goals and scope. Second, the case of Sweden's Vesper Group and its cooperation with the Swedish government indicates that some EU member states may also be in the process of structural and institutional mutation as providers of defence and crisis management capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the EU's current re-imagining as a global security actor and its stance as a global promoter of progressive gender norms. For this purpose, we analyse how gender and race are constitutive of the meanings of security and Europe in major EU security strategies, and how this relates to the way gender (equality) is addressed as a policy issue. We find that, in the context of waning liberal world order and manifold internal and external crises, EU security actorness is constructed through narratives of masculinisation that entail feminisation of the EU's own past as a "peace project" and "soft power"; Othering of non-EU spaces and subjects; colonial perspectives on the EU's role in the world as "White Man's burden" and the reconstruction of whiteness through notions of "neutral" masculinities associated with technocratic professionalism, superior knowledge production, and market rationality. This intersectional gendering of EU security limits the emancipatory potential of gender policy through the racialisation of Other women and the simultaneous invisibilisation of postcolonial structures of inequality. Our analysis provides the groundwork for addressing how and why the EUropean security project continues to reproduce intersectional power relations and insecurities, despite commitments to gender equality and non-discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

European space policy is currently at a watershed. In 2021, there will be two institutions responsible for European space activities: The EU Space Agency (EU SPA) and the civilian European Space Agency (ESA) founded in 1975. This article investigates how new objectives and governance scheme(s) of European space activities reflect the increasing securitisation of space in Europe. Linking work in critical security studies to the concept of boundary work from science and technology studies (STS) I outline three phases of boundary work – expansion, expulsion and protection of autonomy – that all show how the dividing lines between peaceful and militarised space activities have become increasingly blurred. The conclusion argues that we currently witness a shift in the visions of European integration in space, with ESA remaining outside the EU framework and open to non-EU members while the EU SPA is accessible to EU members only and explicitly dedicated to the use of space for security. As the strategic potential of outer space is likely to grow, the paper offers a critical empirical investigation of the ongoing transformation in European space policy that has significant consequences for how we envision a "united Europe in space". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the Eurocrisis to the migration crisis, and from Brexit to a strengthening far right, the European Union (EU) faces multiple stressors. But while crises unleash anxiety, they do not necessarily portend the worst: because they disrupt old routines, crises can open space for new political possibilities. As a self-consciously hybrid, ‘post-national’ political form, the EU would seem poised to take advantage. Instead it is stuck. In this paper, taking an ontological security approach and focusing on EU migration governance, I propose that one cause of paralysis could lie - ironically - in an aspect of the EU that is crucial to its normative power: Europe’s long peace. An ontological security perspective highlights the management of existential anxiety as crucial to identity, suggesting how different modes of anxiety management have different political effects. Applied here, EU narratives and routines preserving ‘no war’ might suppress relations of structural power; they might mimic primitive defense mechanisms; or they might be symptoms pointing to unconscious processes keeping difficult knowledge - including colonial pasts - undealt with. I suggest how migration governance might manifest these mechanisms, contributing to the difficulties of desecuritising migration and linking its governance to EU values and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper makes three major arguments: 1) US policy inconsistencies during the Iraq containment era alienated key European allies; 2) the allies really wanted the same outcome as the US in Iraq; and 3) the allies supported the US role as leader of the international system, but they envisioned a cooperative leader, not the unilateral actions of the Clinton and Bush (Jr) administrations. Thus, US policy inconsistencies are partially responsible for the lack of allied support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Three time periods are examined: the Gulf War (1990-91), the Clinton-led coalition that continued against Iraq under UN sanctions-prior to the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein (1991-2002), and events during the Bush administration which led to the 2003 takeover of Iraq. The paper concludes with lessons learned and implications for future of US-European relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

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]

Refugee protection efforts have been shown to suffer from substantial collective action problems due to the capacity of restrictive policy measures adopted by one region as a means of shifting refugee responsibilities to other regions. Such responsibility-shifting dynamics have been identified between north and south as well as within these regions. European Union (EU) cooperation on asylum and refugee policies has been criticised for facilitating the adoption of restrictive policy measures and the creation of a 'Fortress Europe'. Fears about the hollowing out of refugee standards have been coupled with concerns about the EU's free-riding on the refugee protection efforts of countries outside the EU. This paper shows that overcoming collective action problems between the Member States has indeed been a key motivation for EU cooperation in this area. However, a comparative analysis of EU asylum laws and refugee protection efforts with those of similar developed countries outside the EU leads to the rejection of some of the assumptions and implications of the 'Fortress Europe' thesis. While there is evidence of north/south burden-shirking and substantial room for improvement in the EU's asylum and refugee regimes, comparative legal research and the analysis of available UNHCR data on other OECD countries suggests that there is no evidence to support the claim that European cooperation has led to uniquely restrictive refugee policies and protection outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the preferences of European defense actors vis-a-vis the European security and defense policy (ESDP) with a view to identifying the main ideational points of convergence and fault lines that structure this policy domain. In an exploratory analysis that relies on an original data-set compiled from systematic interviews conducted with 73 ESDP actors in France, the UK, Germany, and Brussels, we address two research questions. First, what do ESDP actors think about ESDP? Second, can we classify their preferences according to sociological factors that underpin the ESDP domain? To conceptualize the belief system of ESDP actors, we propose a typology that distinguishes (1) the social context in which ESDP actors are embedded and (2) the specific ESDP aspects about which preferences are shaped. Our results suggest that both national and occupational variables play an important role in explaining the preferences of ESDP actors. [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 article introduces the current issue of “European Security,” which focuses on the development of European security in external regions and features papers on the political aspects of regional security, statistical analyses pertaining to international security, and the relationship between regional security and the European Union (EU).

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]

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