Sonia Lucarelli

European Union security governance: putting the ‘security’ back in

Abstract 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.

Seen from the Outside: The State of the Art on the External Image of the EU

ABSTRACT After years of collective fascination with the idea of the EU as a ‘special’ global actor, some scholars have started to investigate whether such a perception of distinctiveness is shared by people, institutions and intellectuals outside of Europe. Such investigations have already produced some interesting results, but they are still limited in terms of geographical and functional scope of research, and they tend to be under-theorised and to fail to engage to their full potential with other branches of literature. This article illustrates how the analysis of the external image of the EU can contribute to the overall understanding of the EUs identity and role in world politics. It goes on to review the main projects on the external image of the EU and their findings, as well as the main challenges to this type of research. It finally proposes avenues of research for the future.

Interregionalism: A Security Studies Perspective

This chapter illustrates in which form regions and interregional dynamics have been considered in the security studies literature and proposes a way to bring greater attention to interregional dynamics. The authors analyse four main approaches to security studies that have dealt with regional security and interregional security: (i) security communities; (ii) regional security complexes; (iii) regional orders; and (iv) multilateral security governance. The chapter concludes that attention to regions and interregional relations in the security studies literature has been limited. The little space afforded to analysis of regional dynamics has been captured by few approaches that examine two main dynamics: the formation of a region characterised by a low probability of internal war because of alternative processes; and the analysis of regional responses to security challenges that cannot be dealt with at state level but require interaction between various levels of governance. The authors conclude that the four approaches are not incompatible but could be combined in order to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary interregionalism.

NATO and the European System of Liberal-Democratic Security Communities

Since 1990, the organizations of the so-called European Security Architecture have paid unprecedented attention to the development of democratic institutions in the neighbouring European area. The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE later OSCE) was the first to set an explicit link between democracy-building and security developing innovative security community-building processes and practices according to a new comprehensive concept of security within which the basic principles of liberal democracy apply (Adler, 1997, 1998; Flynn and Farrell, 1999). Other organizations followed and enacted a series of policies aimed at creating security and stability in the neighbouring Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) by means of democracy-building practices. In other words, acting as if they were rediscovering the theory of democratic peace of Kantian memory, all institutions of the so-called European Security Architecture responded to the possibly destabilizing effects of the collapse of Communism by adopting mutandis mutatis, Immanuel Kant’s recipe for ‘Perpetual Peace’ (Kant, 1795/1991): domestic democracy, international foedus of democratic countries and the development of cosmopolitan law.

Introduction: Italy in the eyes of others

The international role and status of Italy among international powers has been an issue of debate in both the political and the academic context. What has never been systematically investigated is the way in which other powers with which Italy interacts in institutional contexts perceive Italy and its international role. It is the aim of this special issue to provide an overview of how Italy is perceived abroad. This introduction explains why it is worth looking at international images of Italy, and sums up the findings of the research project.

Migration and the EU Global Strategy: Narratives and Dilemmas

Abstract Migration did not figure in the European Security Strategy of 2003. Never mentioned as a threat, it was not even mentioned as a risk. Thirteen years later, migration is widely cited in the new European Union Global Strategy. Much richer than the previous security document and global in aspiration, the Global Strategy treats migration as a challenge and an opportunity, recognising the key role it plays in a rapidly changing security landscape. However, this multi-faceted perspective on migration uncovers starkly different political and normative claims, all of which are legitimate in principle. The different narratives on migration present in the new strategic document attest to the Union’s comprehensive approach to the issue but also to critical and possibly competing normative dilemmas.

Europe's “depopul-ageing” bomb?

For a long time International Relations did not pay much attention to population studies and it took the end of the Cold War to find new attention to global phenomena even included global demographic trends and their implications. Yet such an attention is still limited in academia and fails to find its place in the pages of many leading reviews of the discipline. This is rather surprising given the relevance of demographic trends on the overall future of international politics. The aim of this article is to contribute to the recent literature that shows the relevance of demographic trends for international politics. In particular, the article aims to shed light on two main issues likely to have a major impact on Europe: population growth and ageing. If these phenomena can be considered as global trends, in Europe they compound themselves to depict a particularly worrying scenario for the future. As a matter of fact, while all world regions will experience significant ageing of their populations, the effect of such an event in Europe is particularly troublesome as in this region (contrary to others) it is combined with a declining population. Moreover, when considering trends in other dimensions, and especially in the economic domain, the added effect of demographic decline and aging assumes an ever worrying significance. The net effect on Europes internal balances and its stance in the world are due to be affected. In conclusions, demographic dynamics are worth considering if Europe is to remain a relevant and influential actor in the global landscape.

The EU’s Leadership in global Governance: Perceptions from the Others

The literature on the role of the European Union (EU) role in world politics has speculated on the degree of the EU’s actorness (Bretherton and Vogler, 2006; Groenleer and van Schaik, 2007), presence (Allen and Smith, 1990, 1998), capability (Hill, 1993) and peculiar type of power (Manners, 2002; Telo, 2006; Zimmermann, 2007; Aggestam, 2008; Damro, 2012). The 1990s also acknowledged a growing attention to the EU’s leadership in multilateral settings, with particular attention being paid to the implementation of environmental regimes (Gupta and Grubb, 2000; Oberthur and Kelly, 2008; Wurzel and Connelly, 2010), trade negotiations (Meunier, 2000; Ahnild, 2005) and some other areas in which the EU has a special role, such as the institution of the International Criminal Court (Groenleer and van Schaik, 2007) or development policy (Orbie and Versluys, 2008; Holland and Doidge, 2012), have grown. Most of such literature looks at the EU’s performance in negotiations. However, implicit attention to EU leadership is also present in the analyses of the EU’s role as a norm exporter at the global (Zwolski and Kaunert, 2011), regional (Pace, 2007) or local (Schimmelfennig, 2009) level. An important feature of the EU leadership literature is the recognition that frequently the EU is a leader ‘by example’. This has frequently been claimed in the case of the EU’s role in environmental policy (although the EU’s own strategy to lead by example in climate-change negotiations has been put under pressure by the failure of the Copenhagen Summit (Geden, 2010; see also Chapter 1 in this volume), and even more so as far as the EU’s role as a model of regional integration is concerned (Murray, 2009).

Have You Heard of the EU? An Analysis of Global Images of the European Union

The European Union (EU) is increasingly described as a global power. The growing number of articles analyzing the EU’s global role or the amount of post-graduate courses on EU foreign policy created in the past decade reinforce this notion. The EU has also been reflecting on its global ambitions: recent official documents and public statements make frequent reference to the Union’s ‘global responsibilities.’ According to this self-representation (largely endorsed by a relevant academic literature) the EU is not just a global power, but also a profoundly ‘different’ one. This ‘distinctiveness’ thesis suffers from two relevant shortcomings: it is deeply Eurocentric and permeated by the assumption that being ‘different’ means being a ‘better’ global actor. In an attempt to test this assumption, a number of analysts have started assessing whether the EU’s foreign policy is actually as distinctive (and effective) as claimed. Nevertheless, these studies limit themselves to analyzing the consistency and impact of EU policies and do not capture an important element of the relationship between the EU and the rest of the world, that is, how the EU as a global actor is perceived by non-European societies.

Unione Europea. Nato e la costruzione di comunità di sicurezza democratiche in Europa Centro-orientale

Since the beginning of the last decade, apparently rediscovering the theory of democratic peace of Kantian memory, all institutions of the so-called European security architecture, plus the US, dedicated a substantial part of their redefined (external) role to democratisation. This (re)discovered emphasis has clearly been a response to post-bipolar security (lack of clearly defined) challenges but has had implications that have gone beyond the specific interests of each actor involved. The discourse and practice of democracy-export has in fact contributed to creating the conditions for the definition of a system of democratic security communities in Europe characterised by different degrees of maturity and tightness, but with a common sense of «us »: liberal democracy. This article investigates the role of Nato and the European Union in this community-building effort.