‘Brusselisation’ and the emergence of a strategic culture in the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)

Project Context

In the framework of the European Foreign  and Security Policy Studies Program, a research and training program that was jointly developed by the Compagnia di San Paolo, Turin, the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stockholm, and the Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanover, GPPi research associate Fabian Breuer completed a research project on European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

The project focused on the decision-making system of the European cooperation in security and defence and the development of this policy area. While integration in the area of defence was taboo in the first decades of the European integration process, the past decade has seen progress on many fronts. The EU has conducted several civilian and military operations globally and many crucial institutional developments have taken place. Increasing amounts of knowledge and expertise are being developed in the Brussels-based intergovernmental ESDP machinery. A dense institutional network with a variety of actors between the national and EU-level, as well as between the national capitals, is emerging. Surprisingly, research has not fully captured these dynamic developments. While European cooperation in security and defence has attracted considerable attention, particularly in the media, it has not received the same level of attention elsewhere. Therefore, the project strived for conducting a comprehensive in-depth assessment of ESDP policy-making that is empirically rich, conceptually ambitious and policy-relevant.

Project Results

To this end, the project tackled two related sets of questions: First, what were the driving factors leading to the European integration and security and defence? Second, what kind of decision-making logic governs the policy and decision-making of ESDP? In tackling these subjects, the project provided a detailed picture to what extent the EU is on its way to becoming a strategic security actor and it illustrated the logics and dynamics governing the growing ESDP machinery. Based on several case studies, the investigation of the ESDP machinery and ESDP actors at the national and European levels applied an institutionalist approach focused around the notions of "socialisation" and "Brusselisation".

The research demonstrated that the sensitive policy field ESDP and its decision-making system are not dominated by the lowest common denominator decisions or according to a zero-sum game, as rationalist approaches would suggest. Common norms and values are emerging, which influence the decision-making of the Member States and all ESDP actors involved and an ever more common European approach to security and defence questions is emerging. These dynamics and developments are described by the reintroduced notion of Brusselisation: ESDP develops from an intergovernmental policy field based on an intergovernmental construction to an institutionalised governance system, where socialisation and a logic of appropriateness play a crucial role.