Explaining the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy - Theory in Action

The study of EU's security and defence policy has until now lacked a comprehensive yet thorough and accessible volume on theoretical debates in the field. This timely volume addresses this and is an engaging assessment of the discussions about the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy. It brings together leading scholars in the field who present their respective theoretical viewpoints and illustrate how each has informed their empirical explorations. Pluralistic in its approach, the volume emphasizes the role of conceptual diversity for better explaining the EU's CSDP. It is a broad-range up-to-date survey that speaks to many of the theoretical debates in the field, including mainstream (neorealism, liberal institutionalism and strategic studies, sociological institutionalism), less mainstream (consistent constructivism and structural constructivism) and critical, inspired by neomarxism, Foucauldian approaches and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.

Foreword; J.Solana Introduction: The Role of Theory in the Study of Common Security and Defence Policy; X.Kurowska Neorealism; A.Hyde-Price The Common Security and Defence Policy: Approaching Transgovernmentalism?; S.C.Hofmann CSDP: The Strategic Perspective; S.Biscop & P.M.Norheim-Martinsen The Social Constructivist Sensibility and CSDP Research; X.Kurowska & F.Kratochwil Sociological Institutionalism, Socialisation, and the Brussalisation of CSDP; F.Breuer Bricolage: A Sociological Approach to the Making of European Defence; F.Merand A Historical Materialist Approach to CSDP; I.Oikonomou Applying Foucault's Toolkit to CSDP; M.Merlingen The Praxis of Romania's Euro-Atlantic Security Field: A Bourdieu-Inspired Research Agenda; R.O.Csernatoni Conclusion: The Way Ahead for Research into CSDP; X.Kurowska & F.Breuer