Private Military Services in the UK and Germany: Between Partnership and Regulation1

Abstract

Controversial cases such as the aborted coup in Equatorial Guinea and the employment of private contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison have brought the proliferation of private ‘mercenaries’ to worldwide attention. However, the privatization of military security is more diverse and complex than generally suggested. Specifically, one needs to distinguish between the use of private mercenaries in developing countries and the privatization of military services in Europe. Focussing on the latter, this article proposes that the privatization of military services in industrialized countries can be understood in terms of a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’. As a consequence, the emergence of a private military industry in Europe is not only characterized by distinct forms of governance failure; European governments have also developed new modes of governance to control the industry. Using the United Kingdom and Germany as examples, this article examines two modes in particular: public private partnerships and governmental regulation.     

Practising homeland security across the Atlantic: practical learning and policy convergence in Europe and North America

Abstract

Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’.     

European internal security as a public good

Abstract

This introduction argues for a new research agenda on European internal security cooperation from the perspective of public goods. We set out our case in three parts. First, we identify new empirical puzzles and demonstrate significant explanatory gaps in the existing internal security literature which public goods theory could help address. Second, we outline the building blocks of a public goods approach and provide an overview of its application, both existing and potentially, in various areas of regional security and European integration. Third, we present three complementary ways of using public goods theory to analyse internal security in the European Union, with the aim of spurring new research questions while accepting some limitations of this theoretical approach.     

The European Programme for the protection of critical infrastructures – meta-governing a new security problem?

Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) constitutes a paradigmatic as well as challenging case for EU security governance, which has received limited academic attention to date. This article draws on a heuristic framework to survey the EU's capacities to ‘meta-govern’, that is, to stimulate and steer governance efforts across multiple sectoral and political divides, in this complex issue area. The main part of the paper assesses the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP), which comprises a variety of policy instruments and initiatives, on this basis. It is shown that the attempt of an authoritative regulation of European critical infrastructures has remained narrow and of questionable effectiveness. Scientific networks have developed more dynamically, while the participation of private companies and corresponding EU financial instruments are yet to show their potential. Finally, the EU's organizational capacity in CIP suffers from a lack of coordination structures in the European Commission, but also needs to take the scarcely known Joint Research Centre (JRC) into account. The conclusions highlight the barriers to comprehensive governance of as well as large research gaps on European critical infrastructure policies.     

European security policy for the people? Public opinion and the EU's Common Foreign,Security and Defence policy

The democratic foundations of European integration in the foreign and defence realm are increasingly being debated. This article looks at the question of democratic legitimacy from one particular angle, by examining public opinion as measured in Eurobarometer surveys between 1989 and 2009. Based on reflections about the relation between polling results and wider questions of democracy, it examines three aspects of public opinion: general support for a common foreign and a common defence policy; differences among support rates in EU member states; and what roles Europeans would prefer for European armed forces. It turns out that general support for a common foreign policy is high, whereas the desirability of a common defence policy is much more contested. Moreover, citizens across Europe would prefer European armed forces to take on traditional tasks, as territorial defence. An EU defence policy that goes beyond strict intergovernmentalism and is directed towards protecting international law and universal human rights would thus require a significant communicative effort to become accepted.     

The Chinese problem as seen by the WEU

Europe has been the privileged economic and political partner of Africa, but more recently China has increased its foothold in Africa through important financial investments and trade agreements. Against this backdrop, the empirical research conducted in 2007-08 in Kenya and South Africa as part of a pioneering international project investigates the perceptions of public opinion, political leaders, civil society activists and media operators. While confirming their continent's traditional proximity to Europe, African citizens are increasingly interested in China and its impact on Africa's development. Europe is criticised for not having been able to dismiss the traditionally ‘patronising’ attitude towards Africa. While African civil society leaders and media operators describe China as an opportunity for Africa to break free of its historical dependence on European markets, other opinion leaders warn against too much enthusiasm for the Asian giant. There is a suspicion that the Chinese strategy might, in the long run, turn into a new form of economic patronage.     

Civil security in the EU: national persistence versus EU ambitions?

Noting that European Union (EU) institutions are increasingly engaged in civil protection in the member states, security governance is used as an analytical framework to assess the depth of EU engagement in delivering civil security. It is shown that a state-centric approach is no longer adequate to understand the provision of civil security across Europe. To varying degrees, the EU has acquired responsibilities to facilitate, coordinate, manage, and regulate civil security, whether before or after a civil crisis occurs. The analysis demonstrates that, whilst intergovernmental practices and inter-state cooperation remain salient features of civil security, the responsibilities undertaken by the EU institutions across the entire policy spectrum are more substantial than a strictly intergovernmental perspective would suggest.     

俄罗斯参与构建欧洲新安全结构的阻碍因素

俄罗斯参与构建欧洲新安全结构进程中存在三个主要的阻碍因素:国内问题;缺少同盟军的支持;俄罗斯选定的欧洲安全结构核心框架———欧洲安全与合作组织本身具有致命的缺陷。以上阻碍因素使俄罗斯在该进程中很难发挥重大作用。     

Europe after the U.S. Pivot

Insofar as Europe's security and cohesion have for decades been premised upon a strong American political and strategic engagement, Washington's intention to “rebalance” to Asia casts a shadow over the sustainability of a stable and coherent geopolitical order on the continent. This article argues that as the United States seeks to rebalance strategically towards the Asia-Pacific region a number of “indigenous” geopolitical trends are becoming increasingly important in Europe: an Anglo-French entente for a “maritime” Europe, a German-French “continental” project of economic and political integration, and Russia's resurgence across Europe's East. The growing prominence of competing geopolitical visions for Europe might even call into question the cohesion and direction of the institutional expressions of the U.S.- engineered Western order in Europe, namely the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union. Increasing geopolitical and institutional contestation, we contend, pose a number of challenges for both U.S. interests and European security.     

Voluntary organizations and society–military relations in contemporary Russia

The 2014 crisis in Ukraine has refocused attention on Russia as a European security actor. Despite showing renewed military capability, compared to the post-Soviet period, Russian society–military relations have remained the same. This relationship (between society and the security organs) provides the key context for assessing security. Analysis of everyday militarization and the role of voluntary organizations (such as DOSAAF [Dobrovol'noe obshchestvo sodeistviya armii, aviatsii i flotu] and Nashi [Molodezhnoe demokraticheskoe antifashistskoe dvizheni]) in supporting the military can provide an important insight into Russian behaviour as a security actor. These organizations generate a pro-military outlook and at the same time provide training and activities, thus contributing to military effectiveness by developing the competency of young people prior to military service as well as increasing public knowledge of military affairs. However, strong support for the military, a lack of independent information, and an absence of a shared vision on how society–military relations should be developed and also represent political challenges in terms of everyday militarization. This dynamic is important for understanding both Russia's security posture and wider security implications for Europe.     

Making sense of EU comprehensive security towards conceptual and analytical clarity

Abstract

European leaders frequently vaunt the European Union's distinctiveness in adopting and pursuing a comprehensive approach to security. The EU's profile as an international actor is designed to span across all dimensions of security. As a result, its security policy portfolio involves a large number of institutional actors and policies that need to be coordinated. The ambition of the EU to provide security in a comprehensive manner raises challenges at the politico–strategic level, at the level of operational and policy planning and in day-to-day implementation. So far, the field is lacking an inclusive analytical framework for the analysis of providing security through a distinctively comprehensive civil–military, economic and political organisation. This article seeks to close this gap by providing suggestions for how the wide range of issues related to comprehensive security could be structured, and by framing the matter theoretically and with reference to existing conceptual work and empirical research.     

Cooperation in EU disaster response and security provision: circulating practices

There is a profound disconnect between the practice and scholarly study of security in Europe. The 2010 Internal Security Strategy added disasters such as forest fires, earthquakes, and floods to the list of European Union (EU) internal security concerns, expanding on the more traditional anxieties over militaries, border protection, and the effects of poverty. This article explores how evolving practices of disaster response, a policy area once separate from EU security discourse, have become part of the EU's wider security provision and with what implications. Based on interviews conducted at the Directorate-General (DG) for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), it provides a detailed study of three EU disaster response practices – monitoring, training, and information co-ordinating – and their circulation to the wider field of EU internal security provision. It uses this case to outline that new understandings of what it means to “voluntarily co-operate” in European security projects have been radically under-theorized.     

Politicising European security: from technocratic to contentious politics?

Security provision in and by the EU has become an issue of increasing public interest and controversy. There are diverse and growing demands and critiques from different political camps towards the EU while EU institutions, in turn, utilise their security function as a resource for authority construction and self-legitimation. More recently, European security has also become intertwined with contemporary “crises” that turned it into an arena for the negotiation of fundamental conflicts, often revolving around questions of identity and sovereignty. This paper argues that these developments represent a significant change of European security and its politics that existing approaches linking the field to depoliticisation cannot adequately capture. To fill this gap, this paper suggests applying a politicisation perspective that, so far, has focused on the European integration project as such or the “Eurozone crisis” to the purportedly special security field.     

Security governance and the private military industry in Europe and North America

Even before Iraq, the grow ing use of private military contractors has been widely discussed in the academic and public literature. However, the reasons for the proliferation of private military companies and its implications are frequently generalized due to a lack of suitable theoretical approaches for the analysis of private means of violence in contemporary security. Consequently, this article contends, the analysis of the growth of the private military industry typically conflates two separate developments: the failure of some developing states to provide for their national security and the privatization of military services in industrialized nations in Europe and North America. This article focuses on the latter and argues that the concept of security governance can be used as a theoretical framework for understanding the distinct development, problems and solutions for the governance of the private military industry in developed countries.     

Understanding EU crisis diplomacy in the European neighbourhood: strategic narratives and perceptions of the EU in Ukraine,Israel and Palestine

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue seeks to better understand the role of communication and perception in EU crisis diplomacy. In a recent Special Issue in this journal, Catarina Kinnvall, Ian Manners and Jennifer Mitzen argue that, “?…?the greatest security challenge facing people across Europe is not physical, despite the threats of Putin and ISIS, but is a sense of fear and anxiety over their daily lives” [2018. Introduction to 2018 Special Issue of European Security: “Ontological (in)security in the European Union”. European security, 27 (3), 249–265]. We take an interdisciplinary approach to widen the scope of studies on European security and offer new avenues for further research into how citizens in the EU’s neighbourhood understand the security challenges they face and the role the EU plays in addressing these. Through this, we aim to bring theoretical and methodological innovation to understanding the role of the EU as an external actor.     

The European Union's human security discourse: where are we now?

The language of human security has been prominent in the European Union's (EU) official discourse for a number of years. However, whilst it has been promoted as a new approach for the EU in the development of its security and defence policy, the aim of this article is to assess the extent to which it actually features in the EU's contemporary strategic discourse and practice. It seeks to uncover where and how the concept is spoken within the EU's institutional milieu, how it is understood by the relevant policy-makers in the EU and the implication of this across key areas of human security practice. It is argued in the article that human security has not been embedded as the driving strategic concept for Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in an era of crisis and change in Europe and beyond and that the prospects for this materialising in the near future are rather thin.     

Navigating the Unknown: Barriers to Evidence-Based Defence and Security Policy in the European Union

At a time when Europe faces numerous crises, there is a real need for rigorous evidence to underpin effective policymaking. However, a gap between academia and policy creates clear obstacles in the use of evidence in policymaking. Many of these enduring obstacles are manifest in the inherent differences between separate communities: academics have difficulty communicating research in an applicable manner, and policymakers, in turn, tend to focus on operational motivations. The gap widens considerably when foreign, security and defence policy within the complex institutional structures of the European Union is considered. In addition to these well known barriers to evidence-based policy, there are two more obstacles in the defence and security space: sovereignty and dispersed decision-making. A dialogue of best practices must be opened up to broker knowledge in the EU context.     

Green consumer markets in the fight against climate change

Abstract

Climate change has become one of the greatest threats to environmental security, as attested by the growing frequency of severe flooding and storms, extreme temperatures and droughts. Accordingly, the European Union's (EU) 6th Environment Action Programme (2010) lists tackling climate change as its first priority. A key aim of the EU has been to cut CO₂ emissions, a major factor in climate change, by 8 per cent until 2012 and 20 per cent until 2020. The European Commission has proposed the encouragement of private consumer market for green products and services as one of several solutions to this problem. However, existing research suggests that the market share of these products has been only 3 per cent, although 30 per cent of individuals favour environmental and ethical goods. This article uses Public Goods Theory to explain why the contribution of the green consumer market to fighting climate change has been and possibly may remain limited without further public intervention.     

Germany and European security governance: how well does the Birmingham model perform?

Abstract

The expansion of the security agenda after the end of the Cold War, propelled by the blowback of 11 September 2001, raises questions about the German ability and willingness to contribute to the regional and global security governance tasks facing Europe and Germany's continuing fidelity to its post-war European avocation. It also calls for a reconsideration of the Birmingham model of foreign policy analysis, particularly its emphasis on (and interpretation of) the ideational and institutional factors defining the German foreign policy agenda and shaping German foreign policy behaviour, at least with respect to the implementation (rather than formulation) of European Union security policies. Towards assessing the continuing utility of the Birmingham model, this article proceeds in three steps: the presentation of the Birmingham model and its restatement as six conjectures; a discussion of the security governance functions undertaken by the EU and the collective action problem facing Europe (and Germany) in executing them; and an empirical investigation of Germany's contribution to the EU as a security actor since 1990.     

The EU,Russia and the potential for dialogue – different readings of the crisis in Ukraine

Recent developments in European security have shown the growing need for a better understanding of the security dynamics on the European continent. This article presents an analysis of differing Russian and European perceptions of European security in general, and concerning the crisis in Ukraine in particular. As much of the literature on these issues has been normatively driven, we aim to provide an impartial presentation and analysis of the dominant Russian and EU discourses. This we see as essential for investigating the potential for constructive dialogue between Russia and the EU. If simplistic assumptions about the motivations and intentions of other actors take hold in the public debate and policy analyses, the main actors may be drawn into a logic that is ultimately dangerous or counterproductive. With this article we offer a modest contribution towards discouraging such a development in Russia–EU relations. After presenting an analysis of the differing EU and Russian perceptions, we discuss the potential for dialogue between such different worldviews, and reflect on potential implications for European security. As the article shows, there are tendencies of a certain adjustment in the Union’s approach that may make a partial rapprochement between the two sides more likely.