Abstract
The article 'The Military Dimension of European Security: An Epistemic Community Approach' advances the argument that security integration is occurring in the European Union as a result of the influence of certain knowledge-based networks or epistemic communities. Given that EU member-states consistently resist integration in areas that are central to traditional state sovereignty, security integration presents a puzzle. The case of the EU Military Committee (EUMC) will serve as an example of how and why epistemic communities matter in security decision-making.
Although the EUMC and the Common Security and Defence Policy are relatively new, the power of shared expertise among high-level military officers has already begun to dismantle sovereign barriers to security integration. In considering the puzzle of security integration, this article suggests that the epistemic community framework provides a better explanation for the emergence of a European security space than alternative arguments, such as principal-agent theory, intergovernmental bargaining, and regime theory. The case of a military epistemic community also serves to broaden the epistemic community literature, which tends to focus somewhat narrowly on cases of environmental and economics experts.
Full info
The Military Dimension of European Security: An Epistemic Community Approach
Mai'a K. Davis Cross
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, Vol 42, No 1, pp 45-64
DOI: 10.1177/0305829813497821