European Defence Cooperation in EU Law and IR Theory

This book offers a novel contribution to the study of post-Cold War European defence. Interdisciplinary in approach, it uses the insights of EU law to assess the utility of existing theoretical accounts of European defence cooperation.

Dyson and Konstadinides link legal and IR scholarship to undertake a detailed exploration of the structural factors which facilitate and hinder closer cooperation in the field of defence. Exploring the explanatory power of Neorealism, they focus on the balance of threat as a driver of the European Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This book critiques the assumption inherent in governance accounts of CSDP that a transition from the ''sovereign'' to the ''functional'' will be possible in this policy area.

European Defence Cooperation in EU Law and IR Theory sheds new light on the factors underpinning the development of the CSDP and the potential for more extensive cooperation in trans-Atlantic relations. The capacity of legal analysis to provide important empirical insight and of international relations theory to enrich legal scholarship by contextualizing it within its political context, makes this book of great relevance to scholars from both disciplines.