Europe's Common Security and Defence Policy: Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change

by Michael E. Smith

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.

344 pages, Paperback

Published June 8, 2017

About the author

See also:

Michael E. Smith, specialist on Aztec cultures
Michael E. Smith (Derbyshire)

Professor Michael E. Smith joined the University of Aberdeen in 2010; prior to that he was a Reader in International Relations at the University of St Andrews and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A native of western Pennsylvania in the US, he holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California (Irvine) as well as an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University. He has been a Fulbright scholar to the European Union in Brussels, a Council for European Studies fellow, a visiting research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, and a University of California Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation/MacArthur Foundation fellow. He was the founder and first co-chair of the “EU as a Global Actor” interest section of the European Union Studies Association (2003-07), and he is on the editorial boards of the Journal of European Public Policy and European Security.

Research Interests

International security; international cooperation/organization/institutions; regional integration/governance; Europe/European Union; the international politics of science/technology.