Differentiated (Dis)integration in Practice: The Diplomacy of Brexit and the Low Politics of High Politics

Abstract

This article advances a practice approach to differentiated (dis)integration in European security and defence in light of Brexit. We propose that understanding how differentiation in the area of security and defence is given meaning on the ground requires examining the everyday social practices of officials and military professionals. Therefore, we focus on the ‘low politics’ of security and defence cooperation in Europe. We do so by entering the diplomatic engine room in the EU's Political and Security Committee (PSC). We show how arguments that Brexit will either be the ultimate death blow to the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) or that it will be the catalyst for deeper military cooperation fail to take account of the social dynamics and the historical path of security and military cooperation in Europe. Future research on differentiation should pay particular attention to how such dynamics play out in the everyday social negotiation of meaning among practitioners.

Differentiated Regional (Dis)Integration Post Brexit

“…Рассуждая о дифференцированной интеграции, мы поневоле обращаем приоритетное внимание на те стратегии, прибегая к которым европейский правящий класс старается примирить разнообразие запросов государств-членов с реализацией общих планов по дальнейшему развитию ЕС. Выходит, в таком случае, что это не сомнительное вынужденное решение, а, скорее, естественное проявление региональной интеграции, в целом вполне предсказуемый результат расширения сферы компетенций Союза, а также гетерогенности интегрирующегося пространства (Svendsen, Adler-Nissen 2019). В социологической системной теории в принципе и у Богданова в том числе дифференциация ведёт к умножению подсистем в современном обществе, отражающему его усложнение.…”

When politics trumps strategy: UK–EU security collaboration after Brexit

“…Moreover, the intergovernmental nature of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), a throwback to the pillar system of the Maastricht Treaty which kept the policy area ring-fenced from the EU’s supranational legislative procedures, also held out the prospect of easier agreement: Not only would the sovereignty cost to the UK associated with continued participation be substantially lower in this domain, but the risk to the EU of keeping the UK involved would also be commensurately lower, since questions of judicial oversight or market-preserving values would not be at issue. Finally, the terms of collaboration were in no way a blank slate, since the UK and EU had been cooperating for many years, during which time they had developed a roster of shared practices and informal contacts at all levels (Michalski and Danielson, 2019; Svendsen and Adler-Nissen, 2019) and routinising intra-EU consultation and coordination (Whitman, 2016: 527).…”

Unity over diversity? The politics of differentiated integration after Brexit

“…Extra-EU treaties between member states, such as the 2011 Fiscal Compact, the Prüm Convention and the Schengen Convention (since incorporated into EU law) represent another form of differentiation between existing members (Cardwell 2019(Cardwell , 1412Fossum 2015, 804). Some recent EU initiatives, notably Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) have also been designed on an explicitly differentiated basis, with membership limited to a common core of member states who wish to move forward in security and defence, and different member states participating in different PESCO projects (Howorth 2019;Svendsen and Adler-Nissen 2019). Moreover, region-specific arrangements, emerging out of the need to deal with historical political complexity, represent a further form of differentiation at the sub-national level.…”