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.

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.

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 engages with key contemporary European security issues from a variety of different theoretical standpoints, in an attempt to uncover the drivers of foreign policy and defence integration in the EU. Although European foreign policy has been attracting an ever-increasing number of International Relations (IR) scholars since the end of the Cold War, consensus on what drives European foreign policy integration has not yet emerged. This book seeks to encourage debate on this issue by examining a wide range of high-profile security issues which have roused significant interest from policy makers, academics and the public in recent years. The volume discusses, amongst other issues, the strategic posture of the European Union as a security actor, the troubled relationship with Russia, the debate regarding France’s relations with the US following France’s rapprochement with NATO and the EU’s influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The collective intent of the contributors to highlight the drivers of EU foreign policy and defence integration ties together the wide variety of topics covered in this volume, forming it into a comprehensive overview of this issue. By paying considerable attention not just to the internal drivers of EU cooperation, but also to the critical role played by the US as an incentive or obstacle to European security, this book presents a unique contribution to this field of debate. This book will be of much interest to students of European security, IR theory, Transatlantic Relations, European politics and EU foreign policy.

Explains why the EU interacts and intervenes beyond its borders, using case studies to present a theory of practice-driven action.

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.

Through a pioneering analysis of two critical junctures in EU counter-terrorism brought about by significant terrorist attacks, this topical book examines the drivers, conditions and impediments for policy integration and information-exchange institutionalisation in EU counter-terrorism.