Felix Berenskoetter

Mapping the Mind Gap: A Comparison of US and European Security Strategies

This article analyses the state of the transatlantic security relationship by comparing two recent key documents: the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the EU’s European Security Strategy (ESS). Deploying Robert Kagan’s caricature of differing strategic cultures between Europeans and Americans as an analytical foil, it assesses both documents with regard to how they define (i) realms of responsibility, (ii) threat assessments and (iii) tasks and instruments necessary to address these threats. Despite semantic overlaps and a sense of common commitment, the findings confirm divergent strategic thinking between European and US policymakers in all three areas. Although some of the differences run along well-known fault lines, the comparison reveals a mind gap that is significantly different from the one outlined by Kagan in one crucial aspect: it shows a US agenda guided by utopian thinking, and a European strategy that appears more realistic.

Parameters of a national biography

This article is concerned with the ontology of political community, specifically the nation-state, as a bounded entity in time and space. Juxtaposed against the reading of it as an autonomous (realism) or permeated (liberalism) unit, or as constituted through Othering (social constructivism), the article conceptualizes the nation-state as a bounded community constituted by a biographical narrative which gives meaning to its collective spatio-temporal situatedness. Taking a phenomenological approach, the article offers a systematic discussion of the parameters of such a narrative. It highlights the relevance of an experienced space, giving meaning to the past, and an envisioned space, giving meaning to the future, delineated through horizons of experience and of possibility, respectively. In this reading, politics is found in the creative and contested attempts to link these dimensions to a coherent narrative on both the domestic and international level.

From NATO to ESDP: A Social Constructivist Analysis of German Strategic Adjustment after the End of the Cold War

This article addresses the question why Germany invested in what became the European Unions Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), a potential competitor to NATO. In addition to highlighting Germanys role in the development of ESDP, the paper offers a social constructivist explanation for this investment based on the concepts of friendship, estrangement, and emancipation. It develops the argument that (1) states gain ontological security by investing in international institutions to negotiate and pursue ideas of order with friends; (2) deep and enduring dissonance between friends signifies a process of estrangement and poses a threat to ontological security; and (3) if states cannot restore resonance with the old friend-institution configuration, they choose a strategy of emancipation by investing in an alternative. Applied to an analysis of German strategic adjustments between 1990 and 2009 in the context of U.S.-led interventions in Iraq, the Balkans, and Afghanistan, the article suggests that Germany invested in ESDP to offset enduring dissonance with the United States and NATO about appropriate mandate, missions, and means, with France and ESDP emerging as a suitable alternative. With this, the article offers valuable insights into the parameters guiding German security policy and the structure of transatlantic relations and also provides a theoretical alternative to the realist balancing proposition.

Under Construction: ESDP and the ‘Fight Against Organized Crime’

Abstract This essay discusses the phenomenon of ‘organized crime’ as a matter for EU foreign and security policy. Primarily aimed at searching for conceptual guidance, it draws on literature on criminology and policing, presenting two different theoretical perspectives for analyzing the phenomenon of ‘organized-crime fighting’, a utilitarian and a critical one. Against this backdrop, the essay discusses how ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) has developed and engaged the issue of organized crime. Specifically, it outlines the character of ESDP as a mechanism for ‘civilian crisis management’ and illustrates its ‘working’ through the case of the EUs police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) by placing it in the two different theoretical frames. Deciding in favour of a social constructivist approach, the essay concludes by suggesting that a successful strategy must focus on the dissemination of the EUs understanding of ‘organized crime’ abroad.

Approaches to Concept Analysis

This article takes as its point of departure Stefano Guzzini’s recent call for ‘ontological theorizing’ as a reflexive engagement with central concepts. In an attempt to advance this agenda, the article presents an accessible overview of different approaches to concept analysis to stake out the field for a discussion of what ontological theorising might entail. The article advances the notion of concepts as ‘basic’ and lays out the parameters through which they obtain meaning, followed by a discussion of three approaches, which tackle the multifaceted nature of basic concepts within and across different contexts. These approaches are labelled ‘historical’, ‘scientific’ and ‘political(critical)’ and presented through the work of Reinhart Koselleck, Giovanni Sartori and Michel Foucault, respectively. The article notes that concept analysis, as discussed here, stands in tension with modern forms of theory building yet is a creative source for theorising that accepts the unstable, political and context-bound nature of ontology.

Friendship, Security, and Power

Claims of ‘friendship’ and ‘special relationships’ are found regularly in the political discourse, and ‘the friend’ is a commonly used term in the International Relations (IR) literature. And yet, this literature still contains very little substantial thinking about the meaning of friendship. Indeed, with the understanding of friendship in IR still in its infancy, we have difficulties seeing it even when looking at it. The reason is that most thinking in IR continues to build on the liberal ontology of actors as autonomy-seeking entities and is reluctant to conceive of them as social-psychological phenomena.1 Even among scholars emphasising a social ontology, the Other tends to take on the form of an enemy. Where friendship is discussed, it is done thinly, portraying it as either a mere opposite of enmity or as a label for states forming a ‘security community’ (Adler and Barnett, 1998; Wendt, 1999). Yet friendship is much more than a relationship in which disputes are settled by peaceful means. Thinkers on the topic going back to Aristotle provide us with a rich understanding of friendship as a relationship characterised by trust, openness, honesty, acceptance, reciprocity, solidarity and loyalty (Aristotle, 1999; Fehr, 1996, pp. 3–16). In line with the overall objective of this volume, this chapter attempts to make friendship conceptually intelligible for students and scholars of international politics.

Mapping the Field of UK-EU Policing

This article seeks to improve understanding of the field of policing in an evolving European space. It explores connections between officers working in police institutions affiliated with the European Union and police institutions in the United Kingdom. Its main contribution lies in offering a typology of interactions surrounding the exchange and interpretation of information through (i) shared databases, (ii) liaison officers, (iii) training programmes and (iv) transfer of threat images. This allows sketching a more nuanced picture of the field of EU–UK policing in terms of both its internal composition and its external boundaries.

Jumping off the Bandwagon

Engaging two recent articles published in Contemporary Security Policy, this intervention affirms that the emergence of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) cannot be meaningfully described as European balancing vis-à-vis the United States. It is equally sceptical about attempts to explain it as a bandwagoning move. Instead, it suggests that European investment in CSDP can be most plausibly explained with a constructivist framework that takes into account strategic culture and identity-related concerns. From this perspective, CSDP is best understood as a vehicle for emancipating Europeans from American tutelage.

Susanna Hast, Spheres of Influence in International Relations: History, Theory, Practice

Bibliography: Berenskoetter, Felix: Susanna Hast, Spheres of Influence in International Relations: History, Theory, Practice, ERIS, 2-2016, pp. 131-135. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v3i2.17

Mehr Kreativität Wagen

This contribution takes up the journal’s mission to showcase foundational theoretical research by and for German scholars of International Relations (IR) and, thereby, to function as an expression oft the ‚identity’ oft the German IR community. My impression is that, overall, German IR is less theoretically innovative and pluralistic than it claims to, and could, be. This is largely due to the dominance of research clusters occupied with international regimes and ‚global governance’, a constraining concern with methods, and a somewhat distorted comparison with an ‚American’ IR discourse. At the same time, I note that a closer look at articles published in this journal over the past decade shows some promising openings. Given the challenge to conceptually grasp the complex and changing field we call IR, I support these moves with a call for more intellectual courage and theoretical creativity.