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ABSTRACT
Security strategies are important sites for narrating the EU into existence as a security actor. The unveiling of a new global strategy on foreign and security policy for the EU immediately post-Brexit could be conceived as a pledge to remain together as a Union for the purposes of contributing to global security in a particular way. This paper offers a brief stock-taking of the EU’s way of writing security from the European Security Strategy (2003) to the EU Global Strategy (2016). A concise exegesis of these documents exposes an interesting dynamic: as exercises in ordering the world, both strategic guidelines have turned out to be major exercises in ordering the self. The comparative snapshot shows the EU as increasingly anxious to prove its relevance for its own citizens, yet notably less confident about its actual convincingness as an ontological security framework for the EU’s constituent members over time.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Maria Mälksoo (PhD, University of Cambridge, 2008) is Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Brussels School of International Studies, University of Kent. She is the author of The Politics of Becoming European: A Study of Polish and Baltic Post-Cold War Security Imaginaries (London: Routledge, 2010) and a co-author of Remembering Katyn (Cambridge: Polity, 2012). She has published on International Relations theory, East European memory wars, and security politics in International Political Sociology, Review of International Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Security Dialogue, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, and in several edited volumes. Her current research explores the transitional justice–foreign policy nexus on the example of post-communist Russia. Since 2016, she is a member of the editorial board of Contemporary Security Policy.
ORCiD
Maria Mälksoo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7110-2050
Notes
1. Federica Mogherini, Speech by High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, the EUISS Annual Conference ‘Towards an EU Global Strategy—The Final Stage’, Paris, 22 April 2016.
2. For example, Kjell Engelbrekt and Jan Hallenberg (eds), The European Union and Strategy: An Emerging Actor (London: Routledge, 2008); Thierry Tardy (ed.), European Security in a Global Context: Internal and External Dynamics (New York: Routledge, 2009); Christian Kaunert and Kamil Zwolski, The EU as a Global Security Actor: A Comprehensive Analysis beyond CFSP and JHA (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Xymena Kurowska and Fabian Breuer (eds), Explaining the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Theory in Action (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Roy H. Ginsberg and Susan E. Penksa, The European Union in Global Security: The Politics of Impact (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Christoffer Kølvraa, Imagining Europe as a Global Player: The Ideological Construction of a New European Identity within the EU (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2012); Joachim A. Koops and Gjovalin Macaj (eds), The European Union as Diplomatic Actor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
3. Cf. Esther Barbé and Elisabeth Johansson-Nougés, ‘The EU as a Modest “Force for Good”: The European Neighbourhood Policy’, International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1 (January 2008), pp.81–96.
4. The EU foreign policy has been famously described as ‘single in name, dual in policy-making method, [and] multiple in nature’, thus pointing at the occasionally uneasy coexistence of the distinct policy-making modes of intergovernmentalism and community method. See Stephan Keukeleire and Tom Delreux, The Foreign Policy of the European Union, 2nd edn, (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p.61.
5. As well evidenced by Floor Keuleers, Daan Fonck and Stephan Keukeleire, ‘Beyond EU navel-gazing: Taking stock of EU-centrism in the analysis of EU foreign policy’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 51, No. 3 (2016), pp.345–64.
6. John G. Ruggie, ‘Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations’, International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter 1993), pp.139–74; cf. Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Atlantic, 2004).
7. Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2 (June 2002), pp.235–58. Manners listed peace and liberty, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social solidarity, anti-discrimination, sustainable development, and good governance as constituting the normative basis of the EU. See also Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Introduction: ethical power Europe?’, International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1 (January 2008), pp.1–11.
8. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, ‘The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012’, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2012/press.html (accessed 15 September 2016).
9. James Rogers, ‘From “Civilian Power” to “Global Power”: Explicating the European Union’s “Grand Strategy” Through the Articulation of Discourse Theory’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 47, No. 4 (September 2009), pp.831–62.
10. Jozef Bátora and Nik Hynek, Fringe Players and the Diplomatic Order: The ‘New’ Heteronomy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
11. Adrian Hyde-Price, ‘A “Tragic Actor”? A Realist Perspective on “Ethical Power Europe”’, International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1 (January 2008), pp.29–44.
12. Hiski Haukkala, ‘A Perfect Storm; or What Went Wrong and What Went Right for the EU in Ukraine’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 68, No. 4 (2016), pp.653–64, p.661.
13. Christopher Hill, ‘The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe’s International Role’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (September 1993), pp.305–28.
14. Kenneth McDonagh, ‘“Talking the Talk or Walking the Walk”: Understanding the EU’s Security Identity’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 53, No. 3 (May 2015), pp.627–41, p.638.
15. Alessia Biava, Margriet Drent and Graeme P. Herd, ‘Characterizing the European Union’s Strategic Culture: An Analytical Framework’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 49, No. 6 (2011), pp.1227–48, p.1230.
16. See, for example, Ion Berindan, ‘Not another “grand strategy”: What Prospects for the Future European Security Strategy?’, European Security, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2013), pp.395–412.
17. Nathalie Tocci, ‘The Making of the EU Global Strategy’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.
18. Annegret Bendiek and Markus Kaim, ‘New European Security Strategy—The Transatlantic’, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) Comments 34, Berlin, 2015, p.2.
19. See also Mai’a K. Davis Cross, ‘The EU Global Strategy and diplomacy’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.
20. Jennifer Mitzen, ‘Illusion or Intention? Talking Grand Strategy into Existence’, Security Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2015), pp.61–94, pp.70–1.
21. Ibid., p.64.
22. David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992).
23. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Later Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity, 1991).
24. For a recent reappraisal of the burgeoning literature on ontological security in IR, see the special issue ‘Ontological Securities in World Politics’, Cooperation and Conflict (forthcoming), especially the introduction by Catarina Kinnvall and Jennifer Mitzen, DOI: 10.1177/0010836716653162, pp.1–9. For the keynote work on the EU and ontological security nexus, see Ian Manners, ‘European [Security] Union: From Existential Threat to Ontological Security’, IIS Working Papers, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 2002/05; Jennifer Mitzen, ‘Anchoring Europe’s Civilizing Identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2006), pp.270–85. In this journal, see Sean Kay, ‘Ontological Security and Peace-Building in Northern Ireland’, Contemporary Security Policy,Vol. 33, No. 2 (2012), pp.236–63.
25. Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State (New York: Routledge, 2008). This is in line with Zarakol’s transhistorical account, suggesting that the state is but one, and historically not an exclusive, form of ontological security provider. See Ayşe Zarakol, ‘States and ontological security: A historical rethinking’, Cooperation and Conflict (forthcoming), DOI: 10.1177/0010836716653158, pp.1–16.
26. Cf. Brent J. Steele, ‘“Ideals that Were Really Never in Our Possession”: Torture, Honor and US Identity’, International Relations Vol. 22, No. 2 (2008), pp.243–61.
27. Jef Huysmans, ‘Security! What Do You Mean? From a Concept to Thick Signifier’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1998), pp.226–55.
28. Ibid., p.245.
29. See Catarina Kinnvall, ‘Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security’, Political Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 5(2004), pp.741–67, p.742.
30. Huysmans, ‘Security!’ (note 27), p.242. See further Stuart Croft and Nick Vaughan-Williams, ‘Fit for Purpose? Fitting Ontological Security Studies “into” the Discipline of International Relations: Towards a Vernacular Turn’, Cooperation and Conflict (forthcoming), DOI: 10.1177/0010836716653159, pp.1–19.
31. Margaret Somers maintains that ‘it is through narrativity that we come to know, understand and make sense of the social world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social identities’. See Margaret R. Somers, ‘The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach’, Theory and Society, Vol. 23, No. 5 (1994), pp.605–49, p.606.
32. See Joshua Freedman, ‘Status Insecurity and Temporality in World Politics’, European Journal of International Relations (forthcoming), DOI: 10.1177/1354066115603781, pp.1–26; Ty Solomon, ‘Time and Subjectivity in World Politics’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4 (2014), pp.671–81. See also T.V. Paul, Deborah Welch Larson and William C. Wohlforth (eds), Status in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
33. See also Wolfgang Wagner and Rosanne Anholt, ‘Resilience as the EU Global Strategy’s New Leitmotif: Pragmatic, Problematic or Promising?’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.
34. European Council, ‘A secure Europe in a better world’, European Security Strategy, Brussels, 12 December 2003, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf (accessed 15 September 2016), p.10.
35. See Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003).
36. Asle Toje, ‘The Consensus-Expectations Gap: Explaining Europe’s Ineffective Foreign Policy’, Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, No. 1 (March 2008), pp.121–41, pp.125–7. See also Antoine Rayroux, ‘Understanding “Constructive Ambiguity” of European Defence Policy: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective’, in Caterina Carta and Jean-Frederic Morin (eds), EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis: Making Sense of Diversity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp.227–44.
37. Hill, ‘The Capability-Expectations Gap’ (note 13), p.317.
38. Michael Smith, ‘Still Rooted in Maastricht: EU External Relations as a “Third-Generation Hybrid”’, Journal of European Integration, Vol. 34, No. 7 (2012), pp.699–715, p.705.
39. Asle Toje, ‘The 2003 European Security Strategy: A Critical Appraisal’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005), pp.117–33, p.121.
40. European Commission, ‘Report on the Implementation of the European Union Security Strategy—Providing Security in a Changing World’, EEAS Strategic Planning, Brussels, 2008.
41. European Council, ‘Internal Security Strategy for the European Union: Towards a European Security Model’, Brussels, 25–6 March 2010, pp.7–8.
42. Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Europe: The Quiet Superpower’, French Politics, Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (2009), pp.403–22.
43. ‘Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe’, A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, Brussels, 28 June 2016, http://eeas.europa.eu/top_stories/2016/280616_global_strategy_en.htm (accessed 15 September 2016).
44. See Federica Mogherini’s foreword to the EUGS, https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/en/global-strategy-foreign-and-security-policy-european-union (accessed 15 September 2016).
45. See J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
46. Cooper, The Breaking of Nations (note 6).
47. Henrik Larsen, ‘The EU as a Normative Power and the Research on External Perceptions: The Missing Link’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4 (2014), pp.896–910, p.905.
48. Manners and Murray point at six narratives that have been used to describe the European integration project: ‘global Europe’, the ‘Nobel narrative of peace’, the ‘new narrative for Europe’, ‘economic Europe’, ‘social Europe’, and ‘green Europe’. See Ian Manners and Philomena Murray, ‘The End of a Noble Narrative? European Integration Narratives after the Nobel Peace Prize’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2016), pp.185–202, p.187.
49. Cf. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel H. Nexon, ‘Relations Before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1999), pp.291–332.
50. Antonio Missiroli, ‘Towards an EU Global Strategy—Background, Processes, References’, EU Institute for Security Studies, Paris, 2015, pp.13–15.
51. Tocci, ‘The Making of the EU Global Strategy’ (note 17).
52. See, in particular, Mitzen, ‘Anchoring Europe’s Civilizing Identity’ (note 24); and Jennifer Mitzen, ‘Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2006), pp.341–70.
53. See Erik Ringmar, ‘How the World Stage Makes Its Subjects: An Embodied Critique of Constructivist IR Theory’, Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2016), pp.101–25, pp.104–5.
54. Cf. Birgit Poopuu, ‘Acting Is Everything: The European Union and the Process of Becoming a Peacebuilder’, PhD dissertation, University of Tartu, 2016.