How useful is the concept of strategic culture for understanding when, where and how the European Union uses force? This paper will assess the extent to which agreement among the European Union Member States to conduct Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations is founded on a top-down...

Immediately after the formal introduction of the ESDP by the Nice European Council in 2000, the new policy was equipped with a starting set of governance structures and procedures for crisis management operations. In 2003, these new arrangements were tested for the first time in the context of...

The accession of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union (EU) in 2007 offers significant theoretical and empirical insights into the way in which the EU has deployed and realised its enlargement strategy/strategies over the past 15 years. Borrowing from the literature on enlargement-led...

A key requirement of the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEECs) that wish to join the EU is that they develop the administrative capacity to implement effectively the "acquis communautaire." The 'twinning' programme is designed to assist in this process. Drawing on experiences in...