The power of informality: European Union’s engagement with non-state actors in Common Security and Defence Policy

ABSTRACT

This article examines the little explored issue of non-state actor (NSA) participation in the European Union’s (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Despite the fact that NGOs and civil society are shielded from formal access to CSDP, EU staff in both Brussels and the missions engage with them informally. Drawing on interviews with policy-makers and NSA representatives, the article analyses the practices of the EU in its engagement with NSAs, focusing on civilian missions in Georgia and Palestine. It shows that such engagement is more intense during implementation at the level of CSDP missions rather than during policy-making in Brussels. It argues that a combination of rational choice-based (functional needs of policy-makers and intensity of NSA advocacy) and constructivist (organisational and individual cultures) explanations helps us better understand why CSDP structures open up to NSAs. The article contributes to the nascent academic and policy debate on EU–civil society cooperation in CSDP and, more broadly, to the studies of informal governance in the EU and NSA participation in international organisations.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• Common Security and Defence Policy
• governance
• non-state actors
• Georgia
• Palestine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Natalia Shapovalova has recently graduated from the University of Warwick with a doctoral degree in Politics and International Studies. She also has an MA in European Public Affairs from Maastricht University, the Netherlands; an MA in International Relations from the Maria Curie Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland; and a BA in Political Science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine. In 2009–2015, she worked as a researcher for FRIDE, a European think-tank based in Madrid and Brussels, focusing on the EU’s policies towards the Eastern neighbourhood.

Notes

1. EUBAM Rafah was launched in November 2005 as a border monitoring mission with the aim of providing a third party presence at the Rafah Crossing Point linking Gaza with Egypt, facilitating the opening of the crossing point and building up confidence between the Israeli government and the PA. When Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, the operation of the mission was suspended. See Bouris (2014).

2. This seemingly contrasts with the military CSDP, which attracts far greater attention from NSAs, especially associations representing the interests of the defence industry and the defence research and technology industry. Their lobbying is seen as one of the factors explaining the growth and development of CSDP (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014, p. 195), and especially the EU's focus on its military dimension.