EU internal security concerns such as migration, police and judicial cooperation are today part of EU foreign policy. This book shows how those concerns dominate the EU agenda towards Mediterranean countries. Adopting a rational-choice institutionalist approach, it explores EU policy and the strategic choices made after the 2011 Arab revolts.

In the post-Cold war period new security threats have arisen in Western Europe. Amongst these, organized crime and illegal immigration are acknowledged to represent significant security challenges. The European Union and Internal Security analyses the nature of these challenges and investigates how the EU has been evolving to counter them. Written by experts in the fields of political science and law, this book addresses a hitherto neglected area of study.

This edited volume offers different theories useful for understanding and explaining European Union cooperation on internal security matters. Cooperation on such matters has not only flourished over the past two decades, but - more recently - has also become one of the most politicised or contested areas of European integration. Yet academic studies in the field remain predominantly empirical or not readily accessible to new scholars. The book addresses this major gap by providing a theoretical primer with a palette of options for explaining a complicated issue area, reaching across the divide of critical and more mainstream scholars that typically fragments discussion and debate. Theorizing Internal Security Cooperation in the European Union offers accessible and authoritative contributions by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field. Each chapter reviews the emergence of a major theoretical approach, the current state-of-the art for that approach, and the accompanying methodological considerations before providing an empirical illustration and an outlook on further research and dialogue with other perspectives. This book will serve as a central reference for developing our understanding of EU internal security cooperation, for exploring the ongoing transformation of statehood, and for illuminating the contemporary evolution of the European Union.

This book addresses the EU’s engagement with the Southern Mediterranean. It examines the involvement of EU institutions in member states’ approach to relevant policy issues within the European Neighbourhood Policy, and how such involvement affects the EU’s overall cooperation with countries in the Southern Mediterranean region. In particular, the book offers an assessment of the nature and development of integration in the EU’s approach to trade and economic development, energy security, counterterrorism, irregular migration and asylum, and maritime security. In doing so, it not only provides a precise and thorough overview of the institutional practices underpinning the EU’s engagement with the Southern Mediterranean, but also sheds light on the EU’s evolution beyond the regulatory polity model.

This collection of papers examines a variety of areas and issues related to, or raised by, the EU Internal Security Strategy. It covers such matters as critical infrastructure protection and environmental crime, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including law, geography and politics. The EU Internal Security Strategy is becoming increasingly complex as it develops over time, as it has to operate against the background of growing diversity in law enforcement systems across EU member states. It is clear that the EU Internal Security Strategy is, and will continue to be for a long time, a work in progress, not only in its aim to address traditional transnational security threats, but also in reacting to emerging concerns, either in new crime areas or issues arising from the implementation of earlier phases of the strategy. This will be a subject matter for many academic discipline areas for some time to come.

In recent years, the EU and its member states have experienced a number of changes, as well as challenges, in the areas of politics, economics, security and law. As these areas are interconnected, changes and challenges to any of them have implications for the others, as well as implications for the populations and institutions of the EU or those coming into contact with its international power and influence. This edited collection focuses primarily on security and law, particularly the EU’s internal security strategy. The EU’s Internal Security Strategy, adopted by the Spanish presidency early in 2010, followed the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, building on previous developments within the EU in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ) policy. The focus of the EU Internal Security Strategy is to prevent and combat “serious and organised crime, terrorism and cybercrime, in strengthening the management of our external borders and in building resilience to natural and man-made disasters”. The Internal Security strategy intersects and overlaps with the European Union’s Counter-terrorism strategy, the Strategy for the External Dimension of JHA, and the EU’s Security Strategy. The role of and interaction between these strategies, their supplementing documents, and their implications for crime, victims, the law, political relations, democracy and human rights, form the backdrop against which the chapters in this collection are written. Building on original research by its contributors, this collection comprises work by authors from a wide variety of academic and professional areas and perspectives, as well as different countries, on a variety of areas and issues related to or raised by the EU’s Internal Security Strategy, from intelligence-led policing to human trafficking and port security. This book examines, from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives including law, geography, politics and practice, both this further refinement of existing internal provisions on cross-border crime, and the increasing external relations of the EU in the AFSJ.

The book provides an essential primer and reference book which examines the different theories deployed to understand and explain European Union cooperation on internal security matters.