ABSTRACT
It is no exaggeration to state that the European security order has undergone dramatic changes in the post-Cold War era. Conceptualizations of Europe, security and order have all changed, and the current order is a more complex and diffuse one compared to that of the bipolar era. Europe has taken on a partly new meaning, no matter whether focusing on geography, institutional set-up or identity. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent break-down of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact imply both that the bipolar division of the continent has ended and that numerous states have gained or regained their independence. As a substantial number of these have entered or have the ambition of joining European organizations such as the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), geography, institutions and processes of mutual identification have all come into a new light. Also the concept of security is changing and contested. Some politicians and academics continue to define security in traditional military terms regarding threat perceptions, actors as well as means, while others favour a much broader understanding encompassing also non-state actors, new types of threats and also new levels of analysis. A prominent example of this is the human security discourse. Order, finally, can be interpreted as global polarity in the traditional sense and has in that light changed from a bipolar structure into a unipolar one, most would argue. When focusing on the regional European level, changing ambitions of different states as well as the appearance and/or changing rationale for the institutions named above have effectuated the simultaneous consolidation and differentiation of the European order (enlargement of major institutions, deepening integration not least within the EU, changing patterns of interdependence, and foreign policy redirection of major states, to mention a few important elements). Thus, to state that this book is concerned with the European security order is more of an introductory orientation than a specific research question. More specifically, this study deals with the European Union as an actor in the European security order. One of the striking features of European security as it is conventionally understood is the arrival of the European Union as a security
actor. This process, further analysed below, remains hotly debated, both in terms of whether it is desired (not least the military components hereof) and how fatal and permanent the so-called capabilities-expectations gap remains. In recent years, much attention has thus been devoted to understanding the evolving common foreign and security policy of the EU, both in terms of impact and when it comes to problems in matching expectations and capacities (see for instance Bretherton and Vogler 2006, Strömvik 2005, Tonra and Christiansen 2004, Ginsberg 2001, Hill 1993). Simultaneously, the debate about the profile of the EU in international relations – in the well-known terms of civilian, military and normative power – continues to occupy a central position in the scholarship on the EU (Kirchner 2006, Sjursen 2006, Hyde-Price 2006, Manners 2002, 2006). This book seeks to contribute to both debates.
