Christian Kaunert

Sarah Léonard

This book represents the first attempt to evaluate the first two decades of the EU counterterrorism policy. It aims to assess the collective securitization process in EU counterterrorism, evaluating this as a process between a construction of security threats and the development of supranational governance through crisification. Compared to the lack of shared perception of the terrorist threat and the virtual absence of counterterrorism cooperation amongst European states in the 1970s and 1980s, the existence of EU-wide debates, legislative instruments and practical cooperation nowadays is particularly remarkable. The chapters in this volume explore this change and seek to explain it by drawing upon the concept of ‘collective securitization’. The book posits that EU counterterrorism needs to be analysed as a process driven by collective securitization as part of an ongoing process of crisification that leads to increased supranational governance. The book is both extremely relevant and timely for readers outside the area of research for several reasons. First of all, EU counterterrorism is often argued to be at the forefront of the EU’s response to new security threats. The ‘EU acquis’ on the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) has grown significantly over the last years. Consequently, it is crucial and very timely to examine EU counterterrorism – exactly 20 years after the first significant measures were adopted in the wake of 9/11. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Global Affairs.

Two Decades of EU Counterterrorism Policy

Collective Securitization and Crisification of EU Policy Change

Patryk Pawlak

This book examines the processes and factors shaping the development of homeland security policies in the European Union (EU), within the wider context of European integration. The EU functions in a complex security environment, with perceived security threats from Islamist terrorists, migration and border security issues, and environmental problems. In order to deal with these, the EU has undertaken a number of actions, including the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003, the Information Management Strategy of 2009, and the Internal Security Strategy of 2010. However, despite such efforts to achieve a more concerted European action in the field of security, there are still many questions to be answered about whether the European approach is really a strategic one. European Homeland Security addresses two major debates in relation to the development of homeland security in Europe. First, it reflects on the absence of 'homeland security' in European political debate and its potential consequences. Second, it examines the significant policy developments in the EU that suggest the influence of homeland security ideas, notably through policy transfer from the United States. The book will be of great interest to students of European security and EU politics, terrorism and counter-terrorism, security studies and IR.

A European Strategy in the Making?

European Homeland Security

The European Union (EU) is making strong inroads into areas of security traditionally reserved to states, especially into internal security, or Justice and Home Affairs. The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), as it has been renamed in the Amsterdam Treaty, has seen significant policy developments since the late 1990s. In fact, there has been no other example of a policy-making area making its way so quickly and comprehensively to the centre of the treaties and to the top of the EU’s policy-making agenda. After major treaty revisions in Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, and, finally the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, as well as an increased political impetus through the European Council Summits in Tampere (1999), the Hague (2004), and Stockholm (2009), the area appears as one of the most promising policy fields for integration in the EU in the foreseeable future. This process has deepened even more significantly after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States, on 11 March 2004 in Madrid, and on 7 July 2005 in London. This book is the first to analyse these hugely topical developments in European internal security at both the treaty and policy levels, as well as its implementation at the national level, from various disciplinary perspectives (political science, law, criminology, etc). This book was published as a special edition of European Security.

Sarah Léonard

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