The EU as a Security Provider: Changing Foreign Policy Roles Amongst Nordic EU Member States

Abstract This article addresses the Nordic European Union (EU) member states' changing national role conceptions prompted by concerns about a weakening international rules‐based order, a flagging transatlantic commitment and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The heightened threat perceptions in northern Europe resulted not only in a renewed relevance of and support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Denmark, Finland and Sweden but also in an emerging appreciation of the EU as a security provider. This is puzzling because the three Nordic EU member states have traditionally insisted, for different reasons, on keeping the EU's security dimension firmly separated from NATO and have opposed the strengthening of the EU's capabilities within the realm of military security. Based on elite interviews and official documents from the mid‐2010s to 2023, we examine how the heightened security concerns and a weakened rules‐based order resulted in changed national role conceptions in these states to include the integration of the EU as a security provider. The article's theoretical contribution lies in conceptualising the reconstitution of roles through external geopolitical events, thereby explaining simultaneous role change and the incorporation of the EU as a security provider into the national role conceptions of the Nordic EU member states.