Europe's Common Security and Defence Policy

Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change

Michael E Smith author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:8th Jun '17

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Europe's Common Security and Defence Policy cover

A new conceptual framework for explaining and evaluating EU security assistance operations, supported by extensive interviews with high-level policy-makers.

Involvement in foreign crisis management, conflict resolution, and peacekeeping operations is a risky experiment for the EU, and its performance varies widely. Thanks in part to inside information provided by top EU policy-makers, this volume explains and evaluates the EU's effectiveness, under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), in conducting over thirty such operations since 2003.The EU's emergence as an international security provider, under the first Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations in the Balkans in 2003, is a critical development in European integration. In this book, which relies on extensive interviews with CSDP officials, Michael E. Smith investigates how the challenge of launching new CSDP operations causes the EU to adapt itself in order to improve its performance in this realm, through the mechanism of experiential institutional learning. However, although this learning has helped to expand the overall range and complexity of the CSDP, the effectiveness of this policy tool still varies widely depending on the nature of individual operations. The analysis also calls in to question whether the CSDP, and the EU's broader structures under the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, are fit for purpose in light of the EU's growing strategic ambitions and the various security challenges facing Europe in recent years.

'This is a first-rate study of CSDP, which stands out from much of the competition due to its clarity and its focus upon the important interlinkages (or occasional lack thereof) between security cooperation, policy and task expansion, and institutional change. Smith is also to be commended on providing the reader with his analysis of the Global Strategy and the ramifications of 'Brexit' for the future of CSDP.' Simon Duke, European Institute of Public Administration
'This is a must-read for anybody interested in EU security and defense policy. Professor Michael E. Smith provides the most detailed overview of the evolution of European crisis management operations thus far. His argument that much of the evolution can be explained by 'learning' is interesting and persuasive.' Marina E. Henke, Northwestern University
'One of the best things I have read on this important topic.' Anand Menon, King's College London
'Indispensable reading for anyone interested in processes of international and European security cooperation.' Sophie Vanhoonacker, Maastricht University
'An excellent job of highlighting the weaknesses and strengths, limits, and potential of security and defense cooperation in the EU.' Stanley Sloan, Scowcroft Centre/Atlantic Council of the United States and Middlebury College

ISBN: 9781107173002

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 20mm

Weight: 610g

342 pages