The Emergence of a Strategic Culture within the Common Security and Defence Policy

Abstract

The present article argues that a strategic culture is rising at the moment within the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and provides empirical evidence of its emergence. This research thus applies an original and multilevel analytical framework to the CSDP, based on the operational level, related to the study of the European Union (EU) field interventions, on the top-down institutional level, focused on the analysis of institutional documents and CSDP exercises, and on the bottom-up institutional level, concentrated on the socialization process among the political actors involved in the CSDP in the framework of the Political and Security Committee, taken as a case study. The present article shows that elements of an emergent strategic culture within the CSDP can be found among those that are consistent to these three levels of analysis. By using an innovative and structured research method backed up by empirical findings, this article aims at deepening the still restricted debate on the nature of the EU strategic culture.