Since the late 1990s, the EU has become involved in the creation of a European Security and Defence Policy, intended to provide the Union with autonomous military capabilities. While academic interest on ESDP has been abundant, not much light has been shed on the development of its military-industrial aspects. This PhD thesis examines why and how an EU armaments policy came about as part of ESDP. The main argument put forward by the study is that the emergence of EU armaments policy should be viewed as a response to the consolidation and internationalisation of the European arms industry that culminated parallel to the birth of ESDP. The role of the internationalised European arms industry was pivotal in the formulation of the EU armaments policy, allowing for the conceptualisation of the industry as a powerful ESDP policy actor. The density of its interaction with EU institutions is analysed as an instance in the making of an EU politico-military-industrial complex. However, the effectiveness of arms-industrial actorness was mediated by persisting inter-state divergences and the contradictions between the political and the economic forms of the authority of capital.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:555716 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Oikonomou, Iraklis |
| Publisher | Aberystwyth University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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