Europe's Foreign and Security Policy

An analysis of the growth of foreign and security policy cooperation between EU member states.

Michael Smith analyses the growth of foreign and security policy cooperation between member states of the EU and examines the dynamics that have produced the current policy process. This perceptive, well-informed analysis draws on extensive empirical evidence, including interviews and official documents.The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.