Quest for a European Strategic Culture: Changing Norms on Security and Defence in the European Union Book

List of Tables and Figures     vii
Acknowledgements     x
List of Abbreviations     xii
A European Strategic Culture in the Making? Introducing a Constructivist Approach     1
Introducing the puzzle: the normative foundations of a European security and defence policy     2
A social science approach to studying norms     6
Outlining key findings     10
Conclusion: the path beyond     13
How do Strategic Cultures Change? Three Mechanisms of Normative Change     15
Strategic culture, norms and causality     15
Unpacking strategic culture and norms     19
Normative and cultural change: conditions, agents, processes     24
Towards a European strategic culture? Conceptualising normative change and convergence in Europe     27
Conclusion: on the path to Humanitarian Power Europe?     42
The Impact of Changing Threat Perceptions on Strategic Thinking in Europe after 1989     43
Threat perceptions and collective norms     43
Formative experiences, threat perceptions and strategic norms before the end of the Cold War     48
Cognitive and normative change after 9/11 and 11/9     59
Conclusion: towards a consensus on defence co-operation, but not on pre-emption     75
TheImpact of Mediatised Crisis Learning on Collective Norms     78
The impact of post-Cold War crises on press debates     78
The qualitative analysis of media content     80
Bosnia: ethnic cleansing and the late resolve to act     83
Kosovo: 'never again' and the first cracks of Atlanticism     90
Iraq: the Atlanticist cleavage and the domestic authorisation crisis     98
Comparison across cases and countries     105
Discussion: political affiliation and cross-country similarities     110
Social Influence through Institutions: the Case of the Political and Security Committee     112
The ESDP set-up and the role of the PSC     112
The dynamics and variables of social influence     117
Social influence in and through the PSC?     120
Manufacturing consent on ESDP? The cases of the European Security Strategy, Artemis and Althea     132
Conclusion: a multiplier of social influence and piecemeal norm convergence     135
Do Europeans Think Alike About the Use of Force? Synthesising and Theorising the Findings     138
Converging strategic norms? Revisiting the hypotheses     138
A narrow and shallow European strategic culture? The compatibility of norms and identity conceptions     155
The easing weight of history or unlearning lessons? Examining and categorising cross-national variation     164
European Strategic Culture and the Prospects for European Defence     171
What kind of European defence is possible? Exploring key choices for ESDP's evolution and operation     172
Implications for European defence, diplomacy and decision-making     184
Appendix: Survey of Parliamentarians and Experts     189
Personal characteristics and party affiliation     189
Norms and perceptions concerning national security and defence policy     190
Bibliography     200
Index     209