Deepening the union: Building a structure of security cooperation in the European Union

This study analyzes the impact of value convergence and structural capacity upon the development of European security cooperation. The central focus of the analysis is a case study of the Western European response to the breakup of Yugoslavia during the period from the emergence of the crisis in 1991 to the signing of the Dayton peace accord in 1995. The study draws upon primary and secondary source material and includes a content analysis of statements made to the WEU Assembly by official representatives from France, Germany and the United Kingdom as well as a content analysis of personal interviews conducted with decision-makers involved in the area of European security.; The crisis in Bosnia revealed clearly that security cooperation is affected by the relationship between value convergence and structural capacity. When value agreement is reinforced by adequate institutional arrangements, then security cooperation is most likely. When institutional capacities are lacking or are perceived as weak or uncertain, then there is less likely to be collective action by the European Union. Political will is simply not enough to produce security cooperation in the context of acute crisis scenarios.; An additional finding of the study is that intergovernmental/neorealist theories are inadequate for explaining the behavior of states in the arena of high politics. The European Union has developed steadily as an arena of complex interdependence and functional integration. That infrastructure of mutual dependence, in turn, has facilitated the growth of trust and value agreement that has made security cooperation an option within the Union. Even if the institutional mechanisms of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) are not yet supranational in character, the process of neofunctional interdependence can be expected to shape the continued development of the European Union as a structure of security cooperation.