There has been a gradual consolidation of interparliamentary cooperation over EU foreign and security policies (CFSP/CSDP). This has culminated in the setting up of a dedicated interparliamentary conference (IPC) on the CFSP/CSDP. This paper considers whether IPC gatherings in their current form help foster the creation of a transnational epistemic community of parliamentarians in foreign and security affairs and thereby aid the empowerment of parliamentary actors in the EU. To this end, IPC attendance patterns are analysed. The article finds that attendance at IPCs' diverges between EU parliaments. This and the fact that few parliamentarians choose to participate again reduces the IPC's utility to facilitate regular interparliamentary contacts. The article then explores structural and individual determinants of these patterns. The findings are relevant for the larger literature on parliamentary participation, as well as on interparliamentary cooperation in general.

Multilateral contexts often complicate parliaments’ efforts to scrutinise and influence security policy, as parliaments usually work in a national setting. This article explores how the internationalisation of security policy has altered parliamentary constraints on executive decision-making. It focuses on cases where multilateral decision-making is particularly advanced and studies military deployments under the auspices of the European Union’s (EU’s) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Using the examples of France, the United Kingdom and Germany, the article examines how the policy’s location at the intersection of decision-making on security and EU matters creates new opportunities for member state parliaments to scrutinise it. Yet, as an analysis of three CSDP military operations shows, these opportunities do not always translate into increased scrutiny practice and vary in line with factors such as national troop contributions, distinct political traditions and an operation’s salience.

This introduction to the special conference issue for the 2014 Millennium Conference on Method, Methodology and Innovation aims to provide a background to the conference theme, as well as the articles included in this issue. It hence serves to outline the reasoning for holding a conference on method and methodology in International Relations, it situates the present debate within a broader context, elaborates on why Millennium is a journal that is well suited to host such a debate, and offers an overview over the different contributions made in this issue.

Abstract:The way in which free movement of people has become the central issue of the British government's renegotiation and referendum campaign on the UK's relationship with the EU risks obfuscating at least three central issues: why immigrants are coming to the UK; what impact EU migrants are having on the UK; and what can be done to effectively regulate such inflows. It is, however, not just the Eurosceptics and the British government but also 'in campaigners' and other EU member states who risk perpetuating a number of widely-held misconceptions about free movement and immigration for political reasons. Buying into such myths risks to undermine attempts to have a more honest and more evidence-based debate about immigration and migrant integration.

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