The internal-external security nexus

The problem of institutional structures in EU security and their persisting differences continues to haunt me. Well sort of. Let me put it this way: I (rather we) did get some comments on our paper, which led us to reconsider our arguments and substantiate it with a different take on the literature.

If anyone out there feels like she or he has published something along the lines of our argument, that policy-making in ESDP and JHA follows different logics, – or argues against it, PLEASE POST a link to your paper here or send me your paper at sdalferth(at)gmail.com!

The fact that ESDP and JHA are still very different is a fact of life and even in the treaty of Lisbon there are few signs that things will change in the future. So despite the fact of life that problem structures do not stop at territorial borders, EU institutional structures very much replicate them over and over again.

How can we explain this behaviour of political actors that seems to contradict the real world requirements? Is it due to

• actor constellations: police v military / ministry of defence v ministry of justice/interior
• political preferences of EU governments concerning internal and external security policy
• third actor involvement
• institutional rules of decision-making
• …

The jury is still out. We try to make a contribution to this debate. Feel free to contribute and share your thoughts. Find our inspirational(?) paper here.

und wieder ein monat

die zeit vergeht.

Schon wieder ist ein Monat um und ich habe nichts geschrieben. Hier. Dafür aber an meiner Diss. Auch nicht schlecht. Wer lesen will – voilá.

Mehr irgendwann.

Es grüßt, sd

Dividing security governance again

A friend from Jacobs University Bremen and I have written a paper on the re-division of EU security studies into an internal and an external domain. In it, we argue against recent developments in security studies, which emphasise the merging of two previously distinct spheres.

What was traditionally considered an internal policy issue (e.g. policing, terrorism, organised crime) and those of the xternal domain (e.g. WMD, failing states) presumably have merged. Now I would be the last one to question the phenomenological merger of threats. International terrorism is the most obvious example.

What I don’t really see, and that is what we argue in the article, is a blurring of the boundaries when we look at the behaviour of states when trying to deal with these problems. Security studies, international relations and in particular governance proponents since recently claim that not only phenomena merge, but that states’ responses also merge.

In our paper we show, however, that when we look at the example of EU security policy, the logics of decision-making and implementation in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and External Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) fundamentally differ. Their logics are just different.

As this is a rather bold claim, I was wondering if anyone out there has a comment or two. I would love to hear them. And here is the paper Security Re-Divided, for those of you who want to read it. Enjoy!

like a phoenix from the ashes….

… this blog rises again.

And you’ll never know whether I’ll actually manage to more or less regularly write something. On anything. I think I have to give up claiming to write about my PhD only or even produce deep and important thoughts about current affairs and life in general.

But at least there will be some more content to the site and maybe – just maybe – even some interesting things.

I have taken a step in the right direction by adding MeeTimer to Firefox. Now I have an external enforcer ensuring that I don’t waste my time watching stupid videos or playing silly games. MeeTimer tells me the amount of time I have spent surfing the net on selected sites procrastinating myself instead of being a productive PhD student (as if such a thing existed). I am still able to access a site, IF I can overcome my bad conscience and click the miniscule link, which allows me to continue surfing.  So far I have been strong.

So to all my fellow PhD students whotend to be distracted by the wealth of information and diversion on the internet – check out the Wired How-to Stop Wasting Time Online. Thanks Wired!

Liberty and problems of operationalisation

Since starting my PhD I’ve been grappling with the problem of security and liberty. You see, the original idea was to develop an index consisting of 6 indicators (3 for each dimension) to ‘measure’ developments in security and liberty. These indicators were to be used in thematic analysis. The results should have given me an impression of the policy field over time.

Of course it didn’t work. So I’ve been trying to scale down the approach.

The idea still is to capture the two dimensions, i.e. liberty and security, with indicators. The idea behind them has changed, however. I no longer want to use them as absolute categories, but as questions directing the interpretation.

I define liberty as follows:

‘Liberty is the scope of defensive mechanisms in place to protect the rights of the individual against intrusions by the state.’

This liberal definition is not helpful without a definition of what rights are concerned. Which rights an individual ought to have is the topic of a large number of discussions. As I deal with the fight against serious and organised crime, mainly freedom of the person, freedom of movement, privacy (or informational self-determination) and data protection are affected. The selection is influenced by the type of work carried out by the police (and other law enforcement bodies). They arrest and restrict the rights of those affected. Increasingly their work depends on data exchange and analysis.

Defensive mechanisms are established through constitutional principles (written or by doctrine), parliamentary laws, and shaped by historic developments. They can be exercised by different agents (courts, parliament, individuals) and with different degrees of bindingness (notice, possibility to respond, compulsion to respond). The change in this aspect of the definition lies at the heart of my analysis.

So in the end I have a matrix similar to the one below:

Court    Parliament    Individual
Constitution
Laws
Tradition

Intrusions by the state, finally, is what I understand as security. For a more understandable definition see the following post in the blog (coming soon).

This definition of liberty with its subcategories are applied to the policy development in Germany and the UK over a twenty year period. Basis for the analysis are relevant laws and regulations. Their development is analysed with respect to the indicators. It is not necessary that every subcategory be affected. Nor is it always possible to quantify the changes. The categories above are what I use to assess the change. I effectively interpret the liberty dimension.

notes on my posts

Before anything else. Happy new year.  20067’s there! 

Ok, to business:

As you will see (soon … ) the posts will vary greatly as to their form and content. They include incomplete texts, which I want to see written and published somewhere, so that I remember, what topics I have pondered and the wonderful answers I came up with. I will publish some aspects of the project, to which I will go back to repeatedly. So expect changes to some posts that I consider important for my work. I use the blog as a notebook, which means I’ll include snippets and even individual words to have a memento. Anyways, it’ll be a rather wide variety.

Posts neither need to pose questions nor be complete in themselve. (I try to make them readable, though.) If you find them confusing or unintelligible, please let me know.

That’s it. Good day.

welcome

Dear all,

welcome to my blog. As of today I will publish on this blog thought and ideas for my PhD project on Fighting Crime in Europe. I have attached a very short version of my project, to give you an idea, what the project is all about.

If anyone happens to be interested in what exactly I am doing, send me an email or leave a comment.

See you around.

sd