Beyond Intergovernmentalism: European Security and Defence Policy and the Governance Approach

Abstract Over the last decade, the EU has developed into a regional institution whose military ambitions extend well beyond Europe. This development counteracts the assumptions of realist and intergovernmental theories, raising the question of what concepts are appropriate for understanding security and defence policy in the EU. It has been argued that governance approaches are particularly well‐suited to describe the functioning of the EU. Yet analyses of the EU's common security and defence policy (CSDP) have to date not been granted the benefits of this insight. This article seeks to remedy this by venturing down the yet unfulfilled EU trail of a burgeoning literature on security governance. Exploring five features of security governance, the article identifies the most promising questions and approaches of the so‐called governance turn in IR theory, ending up with a putative EU security governance research agenda that will lead to a deeper understanding of the kind of security actor that the EU has evolved into.