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Transgovernmental Networks and EU Security Governance Article Cooperation and Conflict 45(3) 312–330 The necessity of protection: © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. Transgovernmental co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0010836710378071 networks and EU security http://cac.sagepub.com governance Simon Hollis Abstract The remarkable increase in European security and defence integration in the past decade has presented a challenge to traditional integration theories. Although they remain relevant, these theories fail to take full account of the changing security architecture of Europe, which includes the rise of transgovernmental networks (TGNs). With a focus on EU civil protection, this article critically examines established definitions of TGNs and investigates how these networks influence the supranational and national levels of security cooperation. Findings point toward the emergence of an alternative form of European security governance that addresses the lack of authority in EU security policy. Keywords civil protection, crisis management, European Union, security governance, transgovernmental networks, transgovernmentalism EU cooperation on civil protection has experienced a rapid growth in preparing for and responding to natural and manmade disasters. In the last decade alone, common contin- gency plans and initiatives have been formed at the EU level in areas as diverse as floods, terrorist attacks, earthquakes and marine pollution (Boin, Ekengren and Rhinard, 2006; Kirchner and Sperling, 2007; Boin and Rhinard, 2008; Ekengren, 2008). Even though traditional integration theories failed to anticipate these and other developments in EU security cooperation, as Hanna Ojanen (2006) points out, they continue to provide value in understanding what drives cooperation in this sensitive policy field. However, this approach tends to overemphasize the explanatory power of traditional integration theories and underestimate the complexity of EU security governance. Cooperation is happening and integration is occurring, but this increasingly exists outside standard insti- tutional frameworks and traditional state authorities. Security governance theory has attempted to depict this change by highlighting alternative and broader forms of security organization with particular emphasis on non-governmental forms of interaction that have ‘perforated’ state sovereignty (Krahmann, 2003; Webber et al., 2004; Kirchner, Corresponding author: Simon Hollis, Hertie School of Governance, Quartier 110, Friedrichstraße 180, 10117 Berlin, Germany. [email: [email protected]] Hollis 313 2006; Kirchner and Sperling, 2007). Nevertheless, both of these perspectives on European security integration have failed to reflect on the Union’s increasing tendency to promote transgovernmental networks (TGNs) (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, 2007; Eberlein and Newman, 2008; Lavenex and Wichmann, 2009, q.v. European Committee of Regions, 2009). This type of cooperation, which is characterized by fairly independent interaction between different governmental sub-units (Keohane and Nye, 1974; Sundelius, 1977; Raustiala, 2002; Slaughter, 2004), is an important and expanding form of governance. While the importance of networks has been well documented in other policy areas, such as social policy, telecommunications and the European Neighbourhood Programme (Sabel and Zeitlin, 2008; Walkenhorst, 2008; Lavenex and Wichmann, 2009), less is known about the influence and importance TGNs have on EU security policy, or how these networks relate to the sovereignty of nation-states.1 This article will address these deficiencies by critically examining how TGNs are defined and how these networks contribute to EU security governance. A set of formal and informal capacities to manage and mitigate an increasing number of major crises has emerged at the EU level in the last decade (Hollis, 2010), which has been tentatively described as the beginning of a ‘secure European community’ (Ekengren, 2007: 106). That is, a community that collectively deals with a wide range of trans boundary threats that cross geographic and functional boundaries (Boin and Rhinard, 2008: 4), such as critical infrastructure break-downs, communicable diseases and terrorism. The suprana- tional capacities designed to mitigate this potential include, for example, the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), a civil protection financial instrument and a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) (European Council, 2007). Civil pro- tection is a central aspect of this community which encompasses an all-hazard approach and pays little attention to the traditional divisions between internal and external security (Duke and Ojanen, 2006; Boin and Rhinard, 2008). This emerging policy sector will, therefore, be selected as the main unit of analysis in this article. Although a number of crisis-management capacities are established at the suprana- tional level, supranational authority remains limited as member states continue to dem- onstrate considerable resistance to the sharing of responsibilities in the area of crisis management. In other words, cooperation in the event of a transboundary disaster is dependent on how member states chose to react (Kirchner and Sperling, 2007: 170–1). There is, consequently, a gap between EU capacity on the one hand and EU authority on the other (Börzel and Risse, 2008).2 This presents an unresolved puzzle for neo- functionalists: based on the classical writings of Ernst Haas, these scholars posit that the Union’s authority will incrementally increase through the spill-over of policy areas which are informed by divergent and expanding functional needs (Haas, 2004; q.v. March and Olsen, 1989; Sandholtz and Stone Sweet, 1997). This process of integration is, however, conspicuously absent in EU cooperation on civil protection, where there is often a ‘lag between rhetorical commitments . and the actual transfer of authority to Brussels’ (Boin and Rhinard, 2008: 19; Boin, Ekengren and Rhinard 2008: 27). Yet cooperation is increasing and integration is occurring in this field. To readily observe this form of cooperation analytical attention must focus less on structural outcomes and more on alternative forms of interaction such as TGNs. Indeed, the very lack of supra- national authority that is understood to limit cooperation in the field of security and 314 Cooperation and Conflict 45(3) defence, can act as a catalyst by encouraging the growth of networks as a form of security governance. To be sure, this position does not negate neofunctionalism, but builds on it by broadening its field of perspective past the ‘mono-casual’ aegis of functional spill- over (Smith, 1996: part II). This article first sketches out how the EU cooperates in meeting transboundary threats, despite the limited authority it holds in this policy domain. This first section also provides a short synopsis of how this process is currently understood by scholars work- ing on EU governance. Based on this literature and empirical observations, the second section provides a framework for understanding TGNs as a form of security governance within Europe. This framework is then used to examine a selected civil protection net- work, before providing an overview of other TGNs operating in the EU. Based on these findings, the influence TGNs have on security governance is elaborated upon, as well as the explanatory power of TGNs in European security research. Coping with crises in Europe The energy debacles in Ukraine, the terrorist bombings in London and the forest fires in Portugal have highlighted Europe’s interconnectedness and vulnerability. Largely in reaction to these and several other crises, the EU has developed a crisis management capacity to prevent, prepare for and respond to natural and manmade disasters in a func- tionally interdependent Europe. The MIC, the Joint Situation Centre (SitCen) and the EU’s Judicial Cooperation Unit (EUROJUST) represent just some initiatives that have been instigated in the last decade aimed at tackling a wide range of common threats. However, it is not just past events that have shaped this policy area. Whether it is the result of an expanding democratic deficit, maintaining regulatory control or guarding national sovereignty, the effectiveness of EU integration in crisis management is restricted by the resistance of member states to concede political authority to the EU (Börzel, 2006; Etzioni, 2006; Kirchner and Sperling, 2007; Eberlein and Newman, 2008). However, this does not mean that cooperation has receded; rather, other forms of cooperation have been created to address the lack of authority of the EU. One approach has been the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). Through this non- regulatory process the Council produces guidelines and benchmarks from which mem- ber states create annual goals that are then subject to a peer review process (Borrás and Greve, 2004: 181; Eberlein and Newman, 2008: 28–9). The prominence of this approach, which was first devised for welfare cooperation, has received much acclaim by academics and practitioners (q.v. special issue in Journal of European Public Policy 11(2): 2004), and its versatility has commended it as a means of providing a more effec- tive EU crisis management capacity (Ekengren, 2006). Another approach is through TGNs which have been suggested as an alternative to the OMC (Eberlein and Newman, 2008). This form of cooperation compensates for the lack of EU authority (vertical interaction) by promoting horizontal or heterarchical interaction (Eberlein
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