Common security and defence policy of the european union in modern political Theory
Sustainable development of integration process in the postwar Europe promoted emergence of a new scientific discipline known as European studies, which pools social sciences and humanities for investigation of different aspects of European integration. One of the most dynamical developing schools of European studies is studying Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU), affected by consistent development of integration in this sphere in the 1990-2000s. As author notes, the phenomenon of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) of the EU is difficult to explain for political science and thats why the majority of its scientific/pseudoscientific studies has a descriptive character. According to that, author puts a question: How and to which degree can existing integration theories and international relations and foreign policy theories explain the CSDP and thereby become a theoretical basis for its scientific analysis? As classic European integration theories federalism and neofunctionalism are reviewed: the first considers the CSDP to be an end of European integration in itself but doesnt explain its institutional development and failures while remaining an influential political philosophy; the second explains the endogenous logic of integration, focusing on supranational institutions, and therefore doesnt examine the CSDP. Neorealism is skeptical about the future of the CSDP, but interprets its emergence via the change of the system of international relations and serves as ideological basis for intergovernmentalism, upon which the majority of CSDP studies is rested. Neoliberal theories dont consider the military aspects of the CSDP, but explain its civil dimension as well as only little progress in the CSDP in relation to economic spheres and coexistence of different security institutions. Liberal intergovernmentalism, equally with neofunctionalism, is focused on delegation of authority and doesnt account for the CSDP, but helps to understand the change of positions at intergovernmental negotiations. Historical institutionalism interprets the CSDP as a result of historical development of the European security institutions as well as causes of European foreign policy change, but doesnt take procedural and system factors into account. Social constructivism explains the CSDP via Europeanization of the foreign policies of member states, as well as its failures via multiplicity of national identities. Author comes to a conclusion that no one of the reviewed theories can completely explain the phenomenon of the CSDP, however everyone can be used to explain some aspects of the CSDP and partly its logic. Therefore a convincing CSDP study needs an approach integrating their strong points into an analytical model corresponding to its subject matter.