Collective securitization and crisification of EU policy change: two decades of EU counterterrorism policy

ABSTRACT

One of the founding fathers of the European Union (EU) was very correct in suggesting that people would only recognize the necessity of change once a crisis was upon them, as the “war on terror” would show. The EU, as this special issue shows, joined in this “war on terror”, whereby it collectively securitized the threat to become a European, rather than a national security threat – a European “war on terror”. It aims to assess the collective securitization process in EU counterterrorism, evaluating this as a process between a construction of security threats and the development of supranational governance through crisification. It posits that EU counterterrorism needs to be analysed as a process driven by collective securitization as part of an ongoing process of crisification that leads to increased supranational governance.

KEYWORDS:

• EU counterterrorism
• collective securitization
• crisification
• European Union
• supranational governance

Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (Jean Monnet Actions).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Kaunert

Prof. Dr Christian Kaunert is Professor of International Security at Dublin City University. He is also Professor of Policing and Security, as well as Director of the International Centre for Policing and Security at the University of South Wales. Previously, he served as an Academic Director and Professor at the Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a Professor of International Politics, Head of Discipline in Politics, and the Director of the European Institute for Security and Justice, a Jean Monnet Centre for Excellence, at the University of Dundee. He was previously Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow at the European University Institute Florence, and Senior Lecturer in EU Politics & International Relations, University of Salford. He is currently the Editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, International Conflict and Cooperation and the Edward Elgar Book Series “European Security and Justice Critiques”. Prof. Kaunert holds a PhD in International Politics & an MSc in European Politics from the University of Wales Aberystwyth, a BA (Hons) European Business from Dublin City University, ESB Reutlingen and a BA (Hons) Open University.

Sarah Léonard

Prof. Sarah Léonard joined the University of the West of England as a Professor of International Security in July 2018. Sarah holds a PhD in International Politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, a Master of Arts in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Leeds, as well as an MA in European Studies and a BA in Politics (International Relations) from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). Prior to taking up her post at the University of the West of England, Sarah was a Lecturer in International Security at the University of Salford, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Sciences Po Paris, a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Dundee and an Associate Professor in International Affairs at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).