Abstract
The construction of EU security actorness has been accompanied by a narrative on security nexuses associated with the “comprehensive approach”. This trend has been intensified in recent years as demonstrated by the discourse on the “refugee crisis”, Daesh activity, hybrid threats and border security. This paper focuses on the internal–external security nexus analysed through one of its materializations notably the interface between the CSDP and the AFSJ. Based on the EU Naval Force Operation Sophia, it is argued that the comprehensive approach underlying the logic of the nexus is the result of a co-constitutive adequacy: “more security” (appropriation of policies and instruments of a multifunctional actor for security purposes) and “more actorness” (securitization of issues in order to promote the actor and its policies). The main contribution of the paper is to think critically on why and how security narratives, military instruments and securitization dynamics serve convergent processes of gaining political and public space for legitimizing policies and actions.
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References
For the purpose of this paper, the securitisation process was analysed through the lens of the Copenhagen School (Buzan, B., Waever, O., Wilde, J.: Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO (1998)): the security speech act on Operation Sophia by EU institutions (Council of the EU, European Council, European Commission); the (perceived) threat (human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean); the securitising instrument (the military operation as an extreme version of securitisation). The analysis of EU actorness was based on the three elements conceptualised by Bretherton & Vogler: opportunity (“denotes factors in the external environment of ideas and events which constrain or enable actorness”), presence (“conceptualizes the ability of the EU, by virtue of its existence, to exert influence beyond its borders”) and capability (“refers to the internal context of EU external action—the availability of policy instruments and understandings about the Union’s ability to utilize these instruments, in response to opportunity and/or to capitalize on presence”)—Bretherton, C., Vogler, J.: The European Union as a Global Actor, p. 24. Routledge, New York (2006). Two security functions were considered in the analysis of the IESN: compulsion (military operations) and protection (internal security)—Kirchner, E., Sperling, J.: EU Security Governance. Manchester University Press, Manchester (2007)
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Acknowledgements
This paper has been developed in the framework of the collective research project: “España ante los nuevos retos de la seguridad marítima: Instrumentos y estrategias en el marco internacional, europeo y peninsular” (DER2016-78272-R), funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Programa Estatal de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad 2017–2019). The author also acknowledges the financial support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia—FCT (Portuguese Science Foundation).
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Brandão, A.P. (2020). The Internal–External Security Nexus: EU Operation Sophia Through the Lens of Securitization. In: Rocha, Á., Pereira, R. (eds) Developments and Advances in Defense and Security. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 152. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9155-2_21
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