Coping with complexity : an organizational perspective on European security governance

How does the European Union respond to a rapidly changing security environment that is increasingly characterised by challenges cutting across the traditional divide between internal and external security? This paper traces the emergence of comprehensive security concepts at the EU level and their subsequent translation into organizational practices. It puts forward a research strategy to analyse whether, how and to what extent the new post-Cold War security concepts have had an impact on traditional ways of providing security in Europe. Complementing current research on European security policies, the paper focuses on their organizational underpinnings to study the governance of complex security issues in the EU. Building on institutionalist theories of organizational change, the paper contends that the dynamics of organizational innovation within the European security architecture lead to outcomes that differ from the comprehensive security concepts developed at the political level. A brief analysis of recent developments in the EU’s counter-terrorism architecture illustrates the complex dynamics of innovation in the European system of security governance.

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