EU Security: Identifying Threats, Response Preferences and Collective Action Prospects

Objectives

• to define the range of threats preoccupying EU policy makers and European security experts
• assess the institutional and instrumental preferences shaping EU security policies 
• investigate the allocation of resources between the various categories of security expenditure (civilian versus traditional military)
• detail the elements of EU security culture together with that of EU collective action in the security field

Method

Two parallel investigations were employed. The first involved a survey, carried out by an email questionnaire and interviews. The second was a quantitative assessment of the contributions EU member states make to security tasks, considering burden sharing and collective action.

Results

The results suggest that:

• ‘new’ security threats dominate 
• multilateralism is the chosen form of  state interactions 
• civilian or ‘soft power’ instruments are preferred in dealing with security threats
• the issue of burden sharing is likely to grow in importance and involve member states in a choice to either institutionalize security cooperation to minimize free-riding, or to allow a few members to shoulder most of the burden and then dictate the direction of policy.

Dissemination

A paper on Supranational Threat Perceptions: Survey Results from the EU’ was presented in 2007 and 2008 at universities in:

• Trento, Italy
• Shanghai, China
• Boston, MA
• Indonesia

A paper on ‘Sharing the Burden of Collective Security in the European Union’ by Han Dorussen, Emil Kirchner and James Sperling was presented in 2007 and 2008 at:

• Aston University
• University of Essex
• The ISA convention in San Francisco 
• Suffolk University, Boston, MA
• APSA convention in Boston
• Summer Schools in Italy and Greece