The end of the Euro-Atlantic pluralistic security community? the new agenda of transatlantic security relations in the global political system

Abstract

The chapter analyses security relations between the US and the EU, as reflected in the new agenda of transatlantic security relations and in its outcomes. Differences in international actorness, in the strategic culture and in threat perception between the two international actors are analyzed. It is noted that, the emerging of security challenges not strictly of a military type, most often transnational in nature, creates an incentive for the two actors to cooperate. An empirical analysis of the answers given by the US-EU to international security crises in the period 1990-2000 is conducted to show that a US-EU cooperation nucleus, built on the long practice of the Atlantic cooperation, is often present in the security field. Especially in the case of international security crises, transatlantic cooperation has often proved to be the basis of a wider socialization process that is capable of creating an environment in which multilateral intervention is more likely to occur. It is argued that this is consistent with the persistence of common values and institutions typical of pluralistic security communities, and with the shift from the agenda-setting phase to the coalition-building one described by evolutionary theory.