European security and defence policy has developed at a significant rate since the late 1990s. As a growing field of analysis, there have been few studies to date that have explored the foreign and domestic implications of the European Union's emerging security and defence policies. This thesis seeks to assess the quality and effectiveness of the present day defence policies of the European Union through an examination of its commitment to civilian and military missions abroad. In so doing, this thesis suggests that these missions stem from a misguided belief that the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its border is the most effective means by which to achieve security within Europe. This thesis concludes that the economic and political tools available to the European Union provide a better means by which to ensure security in Europe and around the world.

European security and defence policy has developed at a significant rate since the late 1990s. As a growing field of analysis, there have been few studies to date that have explored the foreign and domestic implications of the European Union's emerging security and defence policies. This thesis seeks to assess the quality and effectiveness of the present day defence policies of the European Union through an examination of its commitment to civilian and military missions abroad. In so doing, this thesis suggests that these missions stem from a misguided belief that the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its border is the most effective means by which to achieve security within Europe. This thesis concludes that the economic and political tools available to the European Union provide a better means by which to ensure security in Europe and around the world.

European security and defence policy has developed at a significant rate since the late 1990s. As a growing field of analysis, there have been few studies to date that have explored the foreign and domestic implications of the European Union's emerging security and defence policies. This thesis seeks to assess the quality and effectiveness of the present day defence policies of the European Union through an examination of its commitment to civilian and military missions abroad. In so doing, this thesis suggests that these missions stem from a misguided belief that the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its border is the most effective means by which to achieve security within Europe. This thesis concludes that the economic and political tools available to the European Union provide a better means by which to ensure security in Europe and around the world.

European security and defence policy has developed at a significant rate since the late 1990s. As a growing field of analysis, there have been few studies to date that have explored the foreign and domestic implications of the European Union's emerging security and defence policies. This thesis seeks to assess the quality and effectiveness of the present day defence policies of the European Union through an examination of its commitment to civilian and military missions abroad. In so doing, this thesis suggests that these missions stem from a misguided belief that the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its border is the most effective means by which to achieve security within Europe. This thesis concludes that the economic and political tools available to the European Union provide a better means by which to ensure security in Europe and around the world.

For a decade, the EU and NATO have both claimed to have a relationship purported to be a Strategic Partnership. However, this relationship is widely understood by both academics and practitioners to be problematic. Although not denying that the relationship is problematic, it is claimed here that the argument, whereby the EU and NATO simply do not cooperate, is very limited in its value. In fact, it is argued that the two organisations cooperate far more, albeit less efficiently, outside of the formal Agreed Framework for cooperation. According to the formal rules of Berlin Plus/Agreed Framework (BP/AF), the EU and NATO should not cooperate at all outside of the Bosnia Herzegovina (ALTHEA) context. This is clearly not the case. The fundamental aim of this thesis is to investigate how this cooperation - beyond the BP/AF has emerged. Above all, it asks, within a context where formal EU-NATO cooperation is ruled out, what type of cooperation is emerging? This thesis attempts to explain the creation and performance of the informal EU-NATO institutional relationship beyond Berlin Plus. This thesis, drawing on insights from historical institutionalist theory and by investigating EU-NATO cooperation in counter-piracy, Kosovo and Afghanistan, puts forward three general arguments. First, in order for informal EU-NATO cooperation to take place outside of the BP/AF, cooperation is driven spatially away from the central political tools of Brussels, towards the common operational areas and hierarchically downwards to the international staffs and, in particular, towards the operational personnel. Second, although the key assumptions of historical institutionalism (path dependency, punctuated equilibrium and critical junctures) help to explain the stasis of the EU-NATO relationship at the broad political and strategic level, a more complete understanding of the relationship is warranted. Including theoretical assumptions of incremental change helps to explain the informal cooperation that is now driving EU-NATO relations beyond Berlin Plus. Finally, this thesis makes the fundamental claim that the processes of incremental change through informal cooperation reinforce the current static formal political and strategic relationship. Events and operational necessity are driving incremental change far more than any theoretical debates about where the EU ends and NATO begins. Until events force a situation whereby both organisations must revisit the formal structures of cooperation, the static relationship will continue to exist, reinforced by sporadically releasing the political pressure valve expedited through the processes of informal cooperation. If the EU and NATO are to truly achieve a Strategic Partnership , it will stem from an existential security critical juncture and not from internal evolutionary processes.

The study of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has been dominated by various mainstream theories drawn from International Relations and European Studies. These have largely neglected the role of ideas, beliefs, values and practices regarding the use of police and military instruments, in other words, the strategic culture which shapes the security and defence policies of the European Union (EU). This strategic culture of the EU has become manifest in the way ESDP officials think about the deployment of military and police resources as well as in the way they plan ESDP missions. After introducing the concept in general terms, the thesis claims that the notion of strategic culture can be applied to the EU. Various innovative models of categorisationa re provided throughout the thesis in order to describe the state of development of EU strategic culture. An analysis of the development of the strategic culture of the EU is provided since the end of the Cold War up to the year 2007. Important developments such as the institutionalisation of ESDP and the establishment of influential policy networks are considered in detail. The study also takes into account the discourse of ESDP and questions the ideas that stem from it through interviews and questionnaires with ESDP officials. A cases tudy of the police and military missions of the EU in Bosnia Herzegovina is included in order to show how ideas regarding the use of force impact on the implementation of EU missions. In conclusion, the thesis claims that the EU has its own strategic culture which is characterised by a number of behavioural/structural elements as well as by certain ideas, values, beliefs and practices.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a critical evaluation of the neorealist theory of international relations and its soft balancing variant through the use of case studies referring to transatlantic relations in the post-Cold War era. Each case study indicates a specific category of power. These are: i) Military - the European attempt to create a common military arm from 1991 to 2003. ii) Diplomatic - the EU's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1991 to 2003. iii) Economic the EU-USA steel dispute in 2002/03. In particular, the thesis undertakes to analyse whether the EU balanced the USA in the post-Cold War period either as a result of the altered structural distribution of capabilities within the international system (unipolarity) or of a set of deliberate plans to do so. After introducing the concepts of unipolarity, hard and soft balancing, the thesis outlines three comprehensive answers that neorealist scholars have generated as to whether the USA can or cannot be balanced in the post-Cold War international system, namely the structural, the soft balancing, and the alternative structural options. Then, drawing on a defensive realist perspective, this research goes on to consider the creation of the EU as a great power in the post-Cold War era. In light of this, the thesis aims to find out whether the rise of the EU as a great power has had an impact upon unipolarity either because of structural incentives or because of a predetermination to frustrate the aggressive policies of the unipolar state. The thesis then proceeds to investigate whether throughout the case studies series the EU has balanced the USA. The case studies highlight that the EU, freed from the rigid bipolar stalemate it had been locked into during the Cold War, undertook to exert greater influence on the world stage in the post-Cold War period. To some extent the EU has accomplished this in all of the power dimensions analysed in this thesis. Nevertheless, the EU's efforts to hold sway within the international system were not aimed at addressing the relative power imbalance created by unipolarity, and there were no deliberate plans harboured by the EU to frustrate the influence of any aggressive unipolar state. Overall, this thesis found the causal logic outlined by neorealism to be convincing to the extent that the EU emerged as a great power in the post-Cold War era and had greater freedom of action under unipolarity. However, with the partial exception of the economic dimension of power, there was no persuasive evidence uncovered to support the anticipated outcome of the neorealist theoretical slant, namely that great powers tend to balance each other. Moreover, while the soft balancing claim is considered to have promise as an attempt to understand how the EU can respond to US power under unipolarity, this study did not find sufficient evidence of the EU's deliberate intentions of doing so.

This study explores the Swedish non-alignment policy from a European Union perspective. Spanning the period 1995-2018, i.e. from the year when Sweden joined the European Union to the present day, the study concerns the way the EU membership has affected Sweden’s defence policy. Given a variety of noted political decisions and developments, mainly in terms of Swedish defence policy propositions during the target period, the key question presents itself as follows: Does the Swedish membership undermine its possibilities to remain as a true case of non-alignment? To be able to answer this question, the study will look into the extent to which the Swedish policy can be seen as a case of Europeanization regarding its EU membership. Thus, the investigation takes as its starting-point the theory of Europeanization. Relying on a variety of previous research, the discussion uses this theory to provide a perspective of this concept as “Goodness of fit”, essentially an analytical tool for identifying processes and changes within this framework. On a practical level, this means that if the different terms and policies fit perfectly between the union and its member states, there is no need for a change. On the other hand, if there is incompatibility in this context, a process of Europeanization is likely to be identified through the lens of “Goodness of fit”. In general terms, it is concluded that the Swedish defence policy has gradually assumed more of a European identity. Arguably, the country’s official non-alignment policy raises questions for its future involvement in the union. Rather, there is indication that political rhetoric has been only one side of the coin, practical reality another. Yet, one thing is clear: it all seems to happen on Swedish terms.

The main purpose of this thesis is to provide an understanding of the EU’s approach to peacebuilding in its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions and operations. The thesis explores why EU missions carry out mainly post-conflict peacebuilding tasks and whether the shift towards peacebuilding is about a substantial change of EU norms. The research analyses how peacebuilding in CSDP actions is framed, designed and operationalised through the complex decision- and policy-making processes within the CSDP. In particular, the thesis assesses how the EU’s approach to peacebuilding in the CSDP was influenced by the UN’s conceptualisation of peacebuilding and how the EU has developed its own distinctive approach to peacebuilding. While looking at the examples of civilian missions and military operations in Mali and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the thesis provides insights into the operational dynamics of peacebuilding under the CSDP. The thesis argues that CSDP missions and operations reflect a normative and practical commitment of the EU to international peacebuilding. CSDP actions deployed in post-conflict scenarios follow the logic of liberal peacebuilding strategies while aiming at the stabilisation, reconstruction and building of the institutions of a functioning state, in particular the military, police and justice sectors. The EU pursues its peacebuilding activities under the CSDP in a comprehensive, case-specific and geopolitically strategic way as demonstrated by case studies of Mali and Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, the research reveals that, although the shift towards peacebuilding in CSDP actions has been underpinned by a change of normative approaches, driven by the reform process of the UN peacekeeping, it also reflects the EU’s preferences, pragmatic limits and capability-expectation gaps in crisis management.

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