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Tonra, Ben
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Tonra, Ben
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Tonra, Ben
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- PublicationConstructing the CFSP : The utility of a cognitive approachTraditional analyses of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) tend to characterise it either as an effete and declaratory expression of lowest common denominator politics or as a limited framework for median-interest foreign policy bargaining – yet another stall in the Union’s policy ‘market’. Even at a modest empirical level, however, these representations of CFSP fail to convince in view of the development of CFSP in recent years. By contrast, this article will argue that a cognitive approach towards the study of CFSP opens up new and crucial vistas for analysis and offers some striking conclusions on the reciprocal relationship between CFSP and national foreign policies and the transformatory capacity of the CFSP vis a vis national foreign policies, including their ‘Europeanisation’. This approach, it is argued, offers a potentially better understanding of and explanation for CFSP with its comparative advantage defined in terms of its handling of roles, rules, identity and ideas.
Scopus© Citations 92 1349 - PublicationConceptualising the European Union's global roleThere has been considerable debate surrounding the nature of the European Union’s international capacity. Early conceptions of the Union as a civilian – or non-military actor – dominated early thinking, characterising the Union as a new kind of international actor (Duchene, 1972). Others, meanwhile (Galtung, 1973; Bull, 1982) argued that this simply sought to make a virtue of weakness and that if the Union were ever to be taken seriously, then it would have to develop a full-spectrum military capacity. That debate, in a somewhat different form, continues today. The ‘civilian power’ thesis (Maull, 1990; Smith, 2005; Stavridis, 2002) has evolved to one in which the Union continues to be posited as a new kind of international actor, but now as one which is somehow uniquely capable or uniquely configured as effective exporter of norms and values in the international system (Manners, 2002; Sjursen 2004). Others insist that only as the Union develops its nascent military capacity can it begin to shoulder real international responsibilities (Smith, 2005; Kagan; Cooper). Within this second debate exist more polemical positions on the adverse, or other, consequences of the ‘militarization’ of the Union’s international profile and transatlantic arguments surrounding a division of labour between the US and EU in delivering ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ security capacity. This paper will outline and critically engage these debates. It will conclude that while the Union remains a distinctive international actor, the trajectory of its development may suggest the pursuit of an ‘enlightened power’ model.
4316 - PublicationThe Future of EU-UK Security and Defence CooperationThe UK’s departure from the European Union poses many challenges, not least in the field of security and defence. This paper assesses the implications of this for both parties and tries to outline options for a new bilateral partnership. The paper opens with a reminder of the headline contribution that the UK has made and continues to make to European security and defence and its significance as an actor within the Union. It goes on to suggest that Brexit is a lose-lose scenario for both partners, notwithstanding a shared set of security threats and an overall common approach to meeting them. The paper outlines the significant advances in the development of CSDP since the Brexit referendum result and the importance of the Commission’s proposal of new funding to the development of EU member state defence capacities. The paper then reviews options, which have surfaced in the EU and UK respectively to define a new bilateral partnership. The challenges to involving a third-country in EU policy development and execution are examined and the urgent need for the Union and the UK to devise a new – necessarily weaker – relationship is underlined.
144 - PublicationBrexit and Irish Security and DefenceBrexit poses fundamental challenges to the Irish state across the public policy spectrum but critically in the area of security and defence. Traditionally, Irish security and defence policy was driven by three interconnected policy goals; territorial defence, aid to the civil power and international security operations. The prospect of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has placed each of these three security and defence roles into a new context and poses a substantial existential challenge to the Irish state. Each will be reviewed in turn; the impact of Brexit on Irish security and defence policy, the capacity and role of the defence forces, and Ireland’s engagement in EU security and defence – including the prospect of a ‘common defence’. We argue that these three concerns lie at the heart of national existential interests; the survival of the peace process and security on this Island.
398 - PublicationLegitimacy and EU security and defence policy: the chimera of a simulacrum (part of the collection “Understanding legitimacy in EU foreign policy”)How can EU defence policy best be grounded in democratic consent and what are the implications for policy makers of alternative models available? This question has to rest at the heart of any consideration of the democratic legitimacy of the European Union’s evolving “common” foreign, security and defence policies – bearing on the “internal input legitimacy” of this special issue. This article considers the European Union’s defence policy and asks where does the democratic legitimacy of such a policy rest and is such legitimation a necessary condition of developing such a policy? Critically, it also assesses the implications for policy making and policy makers, arising from such legitimization by considering the implications of a shift from first to second generation analysis of civil–military relations and the options for strengthening the democratic legitimacy of this policy area as its development accelerates.
266 - PublicationIreland and Collective SecurityThe aim of this chapter is to reconsider Irish foreign, security and defence policy in the light of the State’s 50 - year long commitment to the UN’s system of collective security. It will contrast that commitment with Ire land’s ambivalence towards collective defence and will argue that the ‘neutrality’ debate in Ireland is premised upon a misunderstanding of collective security that has the potential to pose major policy challenges.
166 - PublicationEuropeanizationThere is no doubt that the concept of Europeanization as applied to EU foreign policy has a growing academic profile. A rudimentary search of Google Scholar, for example, reveals that the concept, linked to foreign policy, was cited in just over 200 scholarly publications in 2000, in 800 such publications by 2005 and over 1,800 academic publications in 2013. However, this very growth has led to criticism. Europeanization has been censured as the poster child for concept-stretching (Radaelli, 2000), as being poorly and confusingly defined (Mair, 2004) and for having limited explanatory capacity, either by reason of lacking parsimony in its measurement (Lodge, 2006) or as a result of confusion over its causal status (Wong and Hill, 2011). These concerns result in the worst possible scholarly criticism – that Europeanization is simply an academic fad, devoid of substantial conceptual utility (Olsen, 2003; Moumoutzis, 2011).
1214 - PublicationSecurity, Defence and Neutrality: The Irish DilemmaSecurity and defence has been a somewhat neglected area of study within Irish foreign policy. Only neutrality has gathered significant attention . The aim of this chapter is to place security and d efence policy within the broader context of Irish foreign policy, to assess its roots and its character and to identify the challenges that it faces. In doing so, it will also look at Irish neutrality and how debates surrounding this concept have impacted the conduct of security and defence policy. Finally, it will illustrate how Irish policy has made a lasting and significant impact upon international security in the area of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.
1257 - PublicationIrish Foreign PolicyAfter decades of disillusionment, the people and government of the Republic of Ireland (hereafter, 'Ireland') have begun to reassess their role and identity in the international system. The Irish state is no longer exclusively defined through its position (mental and geographic) as an 'island behind an island.' While a shared and complex history may always make relationships with Ireland's nearest neighbour problematic, the pursuit of, or flight from, British norms is a decreasing feature of debates in public policy. In its stead is a greater self confidence, an attempt to reach out to other European and small state models and a general ambition to orient the state and its society outwards towards all azimuths rather than eastwards.
1830 - PublicationIrelandThe population of the Republic of Ireland (hereinafter 'Ireland') is 4.7 million with a per capita GDP of €49,300 (Eurostat 2016a). Ireland's debt to GDP ratio in 2015 was 93.8 (Eurostat 2016b). Total defence expenditure in 2016 was €904 million, or 0.48 per cent of GDP, the lowest ratio in the European Union. This represents a defence expenditure of €193 per person (Department of Defence 2016). The full-time strength of the Permanent Defence Forces (PDF) in 2016 amounts to 9,137 with a further 2,332 in the Reserve Defence Forces (Dail Eireann 2016a), with plans to bring this up to a steady-state 9,500. Approximately 10 per cent of the PDF is deployable overseas with an average annual overseas deployment (UN or EU) of 419 personnel or 4.5 per cent of total PDF (Dail Eireann 2016b).
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