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Abstract
This contribution analyses the EU's fight against international terrorism from the perspective of public goods theory. The first part develops an improved conceptualisation of collective action problems in this issue area, and presents a typology of related security goods according to different aggregation technologies (weaker links, summation, better shots). The second part embeds this theoretical framework in the European context, and presents an empirical survey of the EU's anti-terrorism efforts. It is argued that the EU has been comparatively effective in responding to ‘weaker’ link vulnerabilities, even if implementation records are uneven and boundaries of security cooperation remain unclear. In contrast, the EU could not effectively aggregate resources and act jointly in the international fight against terrorism. Due to the non-excludable nature of benefits (as in the case of foreign policy) or partial rivalry of consumption (as in the case of sensitive information), concerns with free-riding and crowding remain significant obstacles to collective action. Finally, the EU increasingly supports better shot efforts to develop new instruments and technologies to combat terrorism, but may be left behind by mini-lateral initiatives of its most capable member states.
Acknowledgement
The author gratefully acknowledges financial support by research project ‘A New Agenda for European. Security Economics’, funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme.
Notes
1. Compare also Sandler (Citation2004) for a extensive treatment of weaker link issues, or the contextual application of the weakest link model.
2. In fact, Rosendorff and Sandler (Citation2004) argue that proactive policies may be oversupplied, as powerful states that can impose negative externalities on weaker states.
3. States may pursue unilateral policies that are not covered by this typology, such as direct negotiation with terrorist groups. Some instances of international cooperation, such as the exchange of intelligence, are also better understood as private goods. This could be compared to the barter of (immaterial) goods and fits the perception of many security professionals that ‘intelligence is a currency’. Other anti-terrorism instruments present ambiguous cases. For instance, the fight against the financing of terrorism could be seen as a weaker link issue which requires the closure of financial ‘safe havens’ (e.g. off-shore or informal banking activities), but also as an additive efforts measured by the sum of frozen assets. Nevertheless, this paper maintains that there are clear clusters of policies that can be distinguished on the basis of aggregation technologies.
4. Interview with national civil protection expert, May 2010.
5. At the time of writing, it was open to question whether the solidarity clause for mutual assistance in the case of a serious terrorist attack result in more binding implementation mechanisms (Rhinard and Myrdal Citation2010).
8. In form of annual public reports (TESAT) and more operationally oriented work on an ‘analytical workfile on islamic terrorism’.
9. Before the Treaty of Lisbon, this body was known as SITCEN.
10. As such, these efforts could also be seen as a mixed case of better-shot and pooled goods, which deserves further investigation with regard to the main collective action problems or benefits of EU action. Since there is little data on the effect of these initiatives to date, this paper presumes that the concentration of resources according to competitive grant application renders the better shot logic dominant, not least as EU research funds need to be matched by national investments.