European Internal Security: Towards supranational governance in the area of freedom, security and justice

Abstract

European institutions are either loathed or underestimated: this book analyses the role of EU institutions, especially the European Commission in an area which has seen tremendous growth over the last ten years – European internal security. From Justice and Home Affairs, this area has become more like a European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In this process, the European Commission has demonstrably played the role of an ‘engine of integration’ in areas such a counter-terrorism, policing, asylum, migration and border management, internally and externally. This book analyses the role of EU Institutions in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. It uses the framework of supranational policy entrepreneurs (SPE), which is often referred to by the academic literature that discusses the role of agency in European integration and is grounded in the work of John Kingdon. The policy-making model starting with the identification of a problem (first stream), which is then followed by a search for alternative solutions (second stream) and a decision among these alternatives (third stream). Policy entrepreneurs stand at the policy window in order to propose, lobby for and sell ‘their’ policy proposal. Yet, this book takes this framework further by synthesising insights from the literature on norm entrepreneurship. This book fills a distinct gap in this scholarship on European internal security and EU policy-making. Although a growing body of literature has emerged that provides regional and thematic explorations of the EU Justice and Home Affairs, crucially, there is no book that addresses the entire Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). Furthermore, the existing literature on policies that we might classify as components of the AFSJ discusses them in isolation from one another. There are some excellent individual studies of asylum, migration, and police cooperation, but not of the entire Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). Because the idea of homeland security has been so controversial and difficult to approach, due to its perceived links to the Bush administration, the body of literature on the subject is rather limited. In the case of internal security literature, most of the work has been done in the United States and focused mostly on the American context. Therefore, scholars and practitioners interested in European internal security are forced to build synergies and draw conclusions by themselves. Within the internal security and terrorism literature, the European dimension to internal security is absent. Most books so far focus on the USA, the UK or individual countries, but not the European Union.This book will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners interested in European internal security, European integration, terrorism and security studies, and international relations and politics more broadly

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