European Union Security Governance: Putting the 'Security' back in

Publication Date: 
01 September 2010
Publisher: 
Routledge
Publication Language: 
EN
Appearing in: 
European Security
Volume: 
19
Issue: 
3
Pages: 
341-359
DOI: 
10.1080/09662839.2010.526109
Abstract: 

The central aim of this article is to discuss the question of how we can understand and explain the European Union (EU) as a security actor in essence, to elaborate on the current literature on security governance in order to provide a more theoretically driven analysis of the EU in security. Our contention is that whilst the current literature on security governance in Europe is conceptually rich, there still remains somewhat of a gap between those that do ‘security governance’ and those that focus on ‘security’ per se. We argue that a synergy or at least a conversation between these two literatures is required in order to enrich further the study of the EU as globalregional security actor.  

Keywords: 
European Union, Security Governance, Securitisation, (In)securitisation, Governmentality, Security, Discourse