Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Military spending – European Union countries'

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003.
Thesis advisor(s): Donald Abenheim, Hans-Eberhard Peters. Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-56). Also available online.

The thesis works towards a new theoretically informed framework of analysis for understanding the deployment of military operations launched in the framework of the European Union's (EU) European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). This multi level collective action approach is based on the assumption that the deployment of those operations is a highly complex process that cuts across different policy making levels from the national to the international and involves multiple actors from within and outside the EU. As a result, the thesis argues that we cannot understand the reasons behind their deployment adequately by focusing only on a single level of analysis. The thesis then develops a more holistic approach for understanding the deployment of ESDP military operations based on three different levels of analysis: firstly, the international level, where the emergence of events that threaten certain values catalyses the process leading to an operation; secondly, the national level, where EU member states formulate their national preferences towards prospective deployments based on utility expectations; and thirdly, the EU level, where the member states come to negotiate and seek compromises to accommodate their different national preferences towards a deployment. The strength of the framework is demonstrated through four case studies. These are EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the anti-piracy naval operation EUNAVFOR Atalanta off the coast of Somalia. The thesis will also provide an overview and critique of the existing theoretical literature on the deployment of ESDP military operations.

Thesis (M.S. in Systems Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2004.
Thesis Advisor(s): Donald Wadsworth, Robert Looney. Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-144). Also available online.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
The 1992 European Union (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, Maastricht Treaty) marked a turning point in the trans-Atlantic relationship. The Balkan conflicts and broader political changes in the 1990s compelled the EU to assume more responsibility in peace operations. The EU's 60,000 strong Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) is planned to be operational in 2003. Will the EU be able to conduct Petersberg-type peace operations? This thesis analyzes policy and military shortfalls of the Balkan peacekeeping effort. Questions about the legitimacy of armed humanitarian interventions, about difficulties in common policy formulation and translation to sound military objectives are the core problems of civil-military relations in European peace operations. The case studies focus on the EU failure to resolve the Bosnian crises between 1992-95, and on the gaps between NATO policies and military objectives in the operations of 'Implementation Force' in Bosnia and 'Allied Force' in Kosovo. The thesis considers developments in EU CFSP institutions and EU-NATO relationship as well as the EU's response to terrorist attacks on September 11 2001. The thesis argues that the difficulty in EU CFSP formulation limits the effective use of RRF in military operations.
Major, Hungarian Army

The dissertation is about the impact of the European Union (EU) on the foreign policy of a candidate in the pre-accession period. More specifically, the research analyses the factors and processes that intervene between the EU power to generate change in Turkish foreign policy and Turkish national compliance with the EU conditions between 1997 and 2005 by way of analysing three cases: Turkish foreign policy towards Cyprus issue, Greek-Turkish bilateral problems in the Aegean Sea; and Turkey’s stance vis-à-vis the launch of the ESDP. Main question the research addresses is “why does a candidate choose to comply (or fail to comply) with the EU conditions in foreign policy?” In other words: “How (through what mechanisms) does the EU generate compliance with the EU conditions in foreign policy?” The dissertation approaches these questions through the perspective of the Europeanization literature and its conditionality school drawing on the Rational Choice Institutionalism. In accordance with this rationalist account, main argument the doctoral research intends to prove is that “the EU’s adaptational pressure on Turkey (operationalized as a function of clear/attainable membership perspective and credible conditionality policy) is a necessary yet not a sufficient condition for domestic compliance in foreign policy if the cost of compliance is high for the target government. In this respect, domestic actors’ strategic calculation is the ultimate determinant of the compliance degrees at the domestic level. In order to prove this core hypothesis, the research used theory testing process-tracing, longitudinal comparison of cases, counter-factual reasoning and the use of a control case. The evidence for testing the argument comes from the measurement of conditionality (measured as the linkage between a given foreign policy condition and membership-related reward) and domestic compliance (measured as foreign policy output ranging from rhetorical to behavioural change) through the content analysis of primary documents. This analysis is complemented with 33 semi-structured elite interviews. The dissertation by proving that the EU’s transformative power in foreign policy works through the cost and benefit calculation of the ruling party and by elaborating on the conditions under which the EU can interfere with this rational calculus (hence modify the opportunity structure for the target government), advances our understanding of the EU’s transformative power and contributes to the Accession Europeanization literature in general. Furthermore, the study provides additional empirical as well as theoretical in-depth case knowledge to the available literature on the Europeanization of Turkey and Turkish foreign policy.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

“What is Europe's role in this changed world? Does Europe not, now that is finally unified, have a leading role to play in a new world order, that of a power able both to play a stabilising role worldwide and to point the way ahead for many countries and peoples?” These were two of the central questions put by the Laeken Declaration, adopted by the European Council in December 2001. The Declaration offered the beginning of an answer, pointing out the direction for future policy developments, and for the institutional reform underpinning them: “The role it has to play is that of a power resolutely doing battle against all violence, all terror and all fanaticism, but which also does not turn a blind eye to the world's heartrending injustices. In short, a power wanting to change the course of world affairs…A power seeking to set globalisation within a moral framework.” At the same time, the Laeken Declaration pointed out some more specific questions concerning the institutional innovations required to enhance the coherence of European foreign policy and to reinforce the synergy between the High Representative for CFSP and the relevant Commissioners within the RELEX family. With a view to a better distribution of competences between the EU and Member States, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, the text mentioned the development of a European foreign and defence policy first, and referred more particularly to the scope for updating the ‘Petersberg’ tasks of crisis management, a policy domain that would take a pivotal place in the consolidation of ESDP and CFSP at large. This Declaration marks the beginning of the process of regime reform that covers the last three years of common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the European Union. This evolution, and the innovations that it has brought about in institutional and normative terms, are the subjects of this thesis.

The Convention on the future of Europe, set up by the Laeken Declaration, represented an important stage in the pan-European debate on the objectives, values, means and decision-making tools of CFSP. The US-led intervention in Iraq in March 2003 marked a new ‘critical juncture’ in the development of the conceptual and institutional bases of CFSP. As it was the case in the past, following major policy failures in the course of the Balkan wars, Member States sought to mend the rift that divided them in the run up to the Iraq war. In so doing, Member States agreed on a significant degree of institutional reform in the context of the Convention and of the subsequent Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC). The creation of the new position of a double-hatted Foreign Minister, as well as the envisaged rationalisation and consolidation of the instruments at his/her disposal, including a new European External Action Service (EAS), is a primary achievement in this perspective. On the defence side, a new formula of ‘permanent structured cooperation’ among willing and able Member States has been included in the Treaty Establishing the European Constitution (Constitutional Treaty), with a view to them undertaking more binding commitments in the field of defence, and fulfilling more demanding missions. Right at the time when the Iraq crisis was sending shockwaves across the political and institutional structures of the Union, and of CFSP in particular, the first ESDP civilian mission were launched, soon followed by small military operations. The unprecedented deployment of civilian and military personnel under EU flag in as many as 13 missions between 2002 and 2005 could be achieved thanks to the development of a new layer of policy-makign and crisis-management bodies in Brussels. The launch of successive ESDP operations turned out to be a powerful catalyst for the further expansion and consolidation of this bureaucratic framework and of the conceptual dimension of CFSP/ESDP. Most importantly, these and other dimensions of institutional and operational progress should be set in a new, overarching normative and political framework provided by the European Security Strategy (ESS).

Needless to say, institutional innovations are stalled following the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in the French and Dutch referenda of May/June 2005. With a view to the evolution of the CFSP regime, however, I argue in this thesis that the institutional reforms envisaged in the Constitutional Treaty are largely consistent with the unfolding normative and bureaucratic features of the regime. As illustrated in the course of my research, the institutional, bureaucratic and normative dimensions of the regime appear to strengthen one another, thereby fostering regime deepening. From this standpoint, therefore, the stalemate of institutional reform does slow down the reform of the international regime of CFSP but does not seem to alter the direction of its evolution and entail its stagnation, or even dismantling. On the contrary, I maintain that the dynamics of regime change that I detect will lead to stronger, endogenous and exogenous demands for institutional reform, whose shapes and priorities are to a large extent already included in the Constitutional treaty. This vantage point paves the way to identifying the trends underlying the evolution of the regime, but does not lead to endorsing a teleological reading of regime reform. As made clear in what follows, CFSP largely remains a matter of international cooperation with a strong (although not exclusive) inter-governmental component. As such, this international regime could still suffer serious, and potentially irreversible, blows, were some EU Member States to openly depart from its normative coordinates and dismiss its institutional or bureaucratic instances. While this scenario cannot be ruled out, I argue in this thesis that this does not seem the way forward. The institutional and normative indicators that I detect and review point consistently towards a ‘deepening’ of the regime, and closer cooperation among Member States. In other words, it is not a matter of excluding the possibility of disruptions in the evolution of the CFSP regime, but to improve the understanding of regime dynamics so as to draw a distinction between long-term trends and conjunctural crises that, so far, have not undermined the incremental consolidation of CFSP/ESDP.

Central to this research is the analysis of the institutional and normative features of the CFSP regime at EU level. The focus lies on the (increasing) difference that institutions and norms make to inter-governmental policy-making under CFSP, in the inter-play with national actors. The purpose of my research is therefore threefold. First, I investigate the functioning and development of the bureaucratic structures underpinning the CFSP regime, since their establishment in 2000/2001 up to 2005. This theoretically informed review will allow me to highlight the distinctive procedural and normative features of CFSP policy-making and, subsequently, to assess their influence on the successive stages of reform. Second, I track and interpret the unprecedented processes by which innovations have been introduced (or envisaged) at the institutional and normative level of the regime, with a focus on the Convention on the future of Europe and on the drafting of the European Security Strategy. Third, I assess the institutional and normative output of this dense stage of reform, with respect both to the ‘internal’ coherence and the deepening of the regime, and to the ‘external’ projection of the EU as an international actor in the making.

On the whole, I assume that a significant, multidimensional transition of the CFSP regime is underway. The bureaucratic framework enabling inter-governmental cooperation encourages patterned behaviour, which progressively generates shared norms and standards of appropriateness, affecting the definition of national interests. In terms of decision-making, debate and deliberation increasingly complement negotiation within Brussels-based CFSP bodies. Looking at the direction of institutional and policy evolution, the logic of ‘sharing’ tasks, decisions and resources across different (European and national) levels of governance prevails, thereby strengthening the relevance of ‘path-dependency’ and of the ‘ratchet effect’ in enhancing inter-governmental cooperation as well as regime reform.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited
This thesis analyzes adverse demographic trends in the European Union, including sub-replacement birthrates and increasing median ages. It investigates the implications of these trends for the EU's prospects for becoming a stronger and more influential actor in international affairs. Pressures arising from population trends in and near the EU could ultimately affect national and EU cohesion, governmental effectiveness, and social stability. Absent remedial measures, social programs in some EU countries will be unsustainable due to the mounting financial burden of pensions and health care for growing elderly populations. Such financial obligations hinder funding other national programs, including modernized military capabilities. Nationalism and national identity are at issue in immigrant integration and assimilation efforts. The role of population trends with regard to the growing threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism is explored. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations that might be considered to avert the looming economic, social, and security crises that may result from these demographic trends. In short, the security and financial consequences foreshadowed by the current demographic trends of an aging, economically weaker, and socially conflicted European Union could present dramatic implications for the vital national interests of the United States.
Lieutenant, United States Navy

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Defense Decision-Making and Planning)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004.
Thesis advisor(s): David S. Yost. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-64). Also available online.

Defence date: 2 July 2002
Examining Board: Prof. Mark Harrison, University of Warwick (external supervisor); Prof. Riita Hjerppe, University of Helsinki; Prof. Alan Milward, European University Institute; Prof. Jaime Reis, University of Lisbon (supervisor)
First made available online on 11 April 2018
This thesis is the outcome of years of research on the complex aspects of military spending among various countries in the interwar period. It would not have been possible to complete this study without the help and encouragement of numerous individuals and organizations, although the ultimate responsibility for the remaining errors is of course mine. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude is owed to Professor Jaime Reis, whose intellectual challenges and individual support have been invaluable in order for me to reach the conclusion of this journey. Secondly, the same goes for Professor Mark Harrison’s untiring efforts to sharpen and develop the theoretical and empirical premises of this thesis, as well as for his kind assistance during my recent stay at the University o f Warwick. In addition, Professor Alan Milward’s comments and scholarly challenges have greatly influenced my stay here in Florence. Of the rest of the faculty here, I would also like to mention Professor Giovanni Federico's and Professor Arfon Rees' insightful seminars and intellectual companionship. The friendship and scientific challenges posed by certain of my fellow researchers have been invaluable: Gerben Bakker, Marc Prat, Tobias Witschke, Svetlozar Andreev, and Babak Rahimi. Data has been provided over the years by, among others, numerous professors and researchers: Erik Buyst, Piet Clement, Herman de Jong, Olga Christodoulaki, Thomas David, Olle Krantz, and Jan Tore Klovland. Moreover, a thank you should also be directed towards the staff of the Department of History and Civilisation during these years, especially Rita Peero and Angela Schenk. The EUI library has offered good facilities for this comparative effort, for which also Dr. Serge Noiret should be thanked.

Defence date: 19 December 2018
Examining Board: Prof. Claire Kilpatrick, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Joanne Scott, European University Institute; Prof. Gráinne de Búrca, New York University; Prof. László Andor, Corvinus University of Budapest, Université Libre de Bruxelles
As of the 2014-2020 financial period the EU has made increasing use of its budgetary resources to advance its policy objectives at the Member States' level thorough the use of EU spending conditionality. EU spending conditionality is a requirement linked to EU funds expenditure that aims primarily to induce recipients to adopt a conduct desired by the EU and secure its financial interests. This thesis examines the novel spending conditionality tool, through the lens of four distinct theoretical frameworks, metaphorically called worlds: the conceptual world (Part I), the legal world (Part II), the constitutional world (Part III) and the institutional world (Part IV). Each theoretical framework reveals important findings regarding the conceptual roots, the legal reach, the constitutional significance and institutional realities of spending conditionality in the EU. Based on empirical EU-wide data and detailed case studies, this thesis concludes that despite its sophisticated conceptual form, thick legal setting, potentially far-reaching constitutional implications and the monumental institutional effort to render the tool effective, in practice, the policy output of EU spending conditionality has so far been limited and uncertain. In response, this thesis puts forward several recommendations that may usefully inform the effective future operation of spending conditionality within the EU legal and constitutional system.
Part II 'The Legal World' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Revisiting the dominant discourse on conditionality in the EU : the case of EU spending conditionality' (2017) in the journal 'Cambridge yearbook of European legal studies'
Part III 'The constitutional world' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as EUI LAW WP 2017/16

Defence date: 13 April 2018
Examining Board: Prof Ulrich Krotz, EUI (Supervisor); Dr. Antonio Missiroli, NATO; Prof James Sperling, University of Akron; Prof Jennifer Welsh, EUI
Why do European Union (EU) member states sometimes respond collectively to prevent or address large-scale humanitarian crises while, at other moments, they use different institutional channels? More than once, EU states have pondered, hesitated, disagreed and let others interfere when widespread and systematic killing of civilians were looming. Instead of using the EU’s military crisis management capacities, member states have acted through different institutional channels such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), ad-hoc coalitions of states or single state-led operations to interfere in humanitarian crises. At times, they have decided not to intervene at all. Why does Europeans’ involvement in humanitarian intervention vary so strikingly? To examine this striking variation in European states’ responses to large-scale humanitarian crises, the thesis draws on in-depth case study evidence from the conflict in Libya during 2011, the post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire during 2010/2011, the sectarian war in the Central African Republic during 2013 and 2014 and the fight against Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. The cases capture the entire range of variation on the dependent variable covering EU operations, NATO operations, ad-hoc operations, and non-intervention. The thesis develops a three-step model to explain why, when, and how European states use military force for humanitarian purposes. The model is situated at the intersection of domestic preferences and the international opportunities and constraints under which European states seek to realize their foreign policy goals. The findings show that, in combination, these factors condition European states’ readiness to intervene. Hence, a preference for non-intervention is easier to maintain if others are willing to intervene, but more difficult to pursue if the resort to force is urgent and the non-European actors are unable or unwilling to offer an appropriate response. At the regional European level, states’ power resources and preferences influence the institutional channel through which European states ultimately decide to intervene militarily. The findings show that the deployment of EU and NATO operations is likely when member states’ preferences are at least weakly congruent and backed by the interests and preferences of the organizations’ most powerful states. Diverging preferences among member states severely hinder common military operations and compel states to resort to ad-hoc arrangements. The dissertation concludes that European states’ preferences, the political contexts in which they operate and their ability to pursue their goals at the international and the regional level considerably influence why, when, and in which format European states intervene in humanitarian crises.

Defence date: 26 May 2008
Examining Board: Professor Kratochwil, Friedrich V., EUI (supervisor) Professor Vennesson, Pascal, EUI Professor James, Andrew, Manchester Business School Professor Krotz, Ulrich, Brown University
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The subject of this thesis is European armaments cooperation between 1992 and 2005. During this period, European governments moved the institutional forum of cooperation from a transatlantic to a European context, extended joint activities to new areas, and established several organizations. Moreover, some of the largest defense companies merged cross-border, and the European Commission started playing an increasing role. The scholarly literature explains these new patterns of cooperation as a result of economic pressures but fails to account for the uneven effects of industrial consolidation, the irregular dynamic of cooperation, the partly overlapping responsibilities of the organizations, and leaves little room for political agency. The thesis conceptualizes armaments cooperation as a setting of a particular problématique and a related regime. It argues that a specific regime configuration corresponds to a certain understanding of the problem at hand, the political project at stake, and a perspective that aligns the joint activities. In 1992 and 1998, different groups of governments conceived of different problems that ought to be solved through cooperation. Hence, the regime was divided into separate arenas inside and outside the EU, in which joint activities were pursued with different purposes, leading to different degrees of integration, and the establishment of partly competing organizations. In 2005, all European governments accepted a link of the problems solved through armaments cooperation to the political project of establishing the EU as an international actor. They agreed that the purpose of cooperation was to provide the necessary military and technological capabilities. Consequently, cooperation was pursued in an increasingly integrated EU arena, inspired by a capabilities perspective, and supported by international organizations like the European Defence Agency and the Commission. Political leadership, timing, and concept crafting are identified as three aspects that are critical for shifts of the problématique. The thesis develops a theory neither of armaments cooperation nor of these cognitive shifts but stresses instead that political phenomena should be made intelligible, with reference to the context and time bound understandings of political actors.

Defence date: 8 December 2006
Examining Board: Prof. Gunther Hellmann (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.) ; Prof. Jens Otmar Höll (Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik, Wien) ; Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel (EUI, Florenz) ; Prof. Firedrich Kratochwil (EUI, Florenz, Supervisor)

First made available online 4 June 2015.
Defence date: 25 February 2008
Examining Board: Professor Friedrich Kratochwil, European University Institute (Supervisor) Professor Ole Wæver, University of Copenhagen (External Supervisor) Professor Michael Merlingen, Central European University Professor Pascal Vennesson, European University Institute
This thesis enquires into the making of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) from the perspective of the actors endorsing and contesting the policy. By identifying the political milieu of the policy, it seeks to problematise the established depiction of ESDP and delineate the framing involved in designing and implementing the policy. I thus advance the argument about the all-pervading character of the political and I stipulate the value of micropolitical analysis for unpacking broad political arrangements. In order to trace security practices enacted through the policy, I explore in depth two instances of ESDP operations and a case of strengthening the UNIFIL forces to Lebanon via an EU initiative. I conclude that the ESDP has proven transformative both within the EU internal system of governance and vis-à-vis the EU’s international positioning. The former involves the rise of domestic politics engendered by the interplay of institutional identities and conceptions of achieving EU security. The latter exposes the shift in the international role assignments wherein the EU becomes a deputy of the US and a saviour of the UN’s reputation.

WPBiO UE wyłoniła się jako unikalny w skali świata, dysponujący szerokim wachlarzem środków narzędziem polityki bezpieczeństwa. Może ona stać się w przyszłości podstawą wspólnej obrony, nie nastąpi to jednak w najbliższym czasie. Uwspónotowieniu ulegnie najprawdopodobniej naszybciej rozwijający się apswkt WPBiO, czyli zarządzanie kryzysowe. Any WPBiO mogła stać się podstawą wspólnej obrony, konieczne jest spełnienie nas tępujących warunków: wycyfanie militarne USA z Europy, zgoda polityczna między państwami członkowskimi co do wzmonienia wspólnej polityki obronnej, wdrożenie inicjatyw takich jak pooling and sharing, konsolidacja europejskiego przemysłu obronnego. Jednak autonomizacja europejskiej polityki obronnej następować będzie powoli. W najbliższej przyszłości NATO pozostanie podstawowym instrumentem obrony wzajemnej dla MS UE.