Emerging Security Technologies and EU Governance

Actors, Practices and Processes

Antonio Calcara, Raluca Csernatoni, Chantal Lavallée

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000092714
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the European governance of emerging security technologies.

The emergence of technologies such as drones, autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber and biotechnologies has stimulated worldwide debates on their use, risks and benefits in both the civilian and the security-related fields. This volume examines the concept of 'governance' as an analytical framework and tool to investigate how new and emerging security technologies are governed in practice within the European Union (EU), emphasising the relational configurations among different state and non-state actors. With reference to European governance, it addresses the complex interplay of power relations, interests and framings surrounding the development of policies and strategies for the use of new security technologies. The work examines varied conceptual tools to shed light on the way diverse technologies are embedded in EU policy frameworks. Each contribution identifies actors involved in the governance of a specific technology sector, their multilevel institutional and corporate configurations, and the conflicting forces, values, ethical and legal concerns, as well as security imperatives and economic interests.

This book will be of much interest to students of science and technology studies, security studies and EU policy.

Chapter 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1 The European Defence Agency and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence

A ‘discursive coalition’ for EU defence research

Antonio Calcara

Introduction

On 20 February 2019, the European Parliament (hereafter EP) and the Council approved the European Defence Fund (EDF). The Fund, proposed by the European Commission, will use the EU budget to finance cooperative defence research and to co-finance with member states the cooperative development of new military-related technologies and equipment (European Commission 2017a). From 2017 to 2020, the EDF has relied on the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) with a budget of €90 million and on the EU Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), with a budget of €500 million.

This activism in the defence–industrial field has been characterised by a strong intervention of the European Commission in a sector that was supposed to be the exclusive domain of the intergovernmental method (Lavallée 2016; see Fiott’s Chapter 2). However, the Commission was not the only relevant actor in this context. The European Defence Agency (EDA)¹ and the EP’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE)² have been present in the process that led to EU defence research since its inception. The scope of the chapter is to assess the role of EDA and SEDE in the policy process that has led to the institutionalisation of defence research at the EU level. Specifically, this analysis suggests that EDA and SEDE, notwithstanding their respectively intergovernmental and supranational status, have formed a ‘discursive coalition’ to promote the contested institutionalisation of defence research and they have also developed important informal links to shape this policy process. Hence, the chapter aims to identify the main elements of this discourse and to test this argument on the recent developments in EU defence research.

The chapter makes three contributions. First, while there are several academic studies that have focused on the European Commission as a policy entrepreneur in EU defence (Edler and James 2015; Haroche 2019), very few studies have investigated the EDA and SEDE. Specifically, while the scholarly works on the EDA have highlighted either its institutional features (Karampekios and Oikonomou 2015; Calcara 2017) or its relations with the European Commission (Fiott 2015; Oiknomous 2018), there are few works on its discursive activity (Barrinha 2015). In the case of the EP, there are recent insightful analyses on its role in security and defence (Rosén and Raube 2018), but – to my knowledge – there are no specific studies on the SEDE. Second, the chapter uses a conceptual framework that draws on discursive institutionalism to underline the importance of ‘discursive coalitions’ in the EU defence field, contributing to an innovative research strand on the importance of discourse within EU defence institutions (Rayroux 2014; Barrinha 2015; Heinikoski 2017). Third, it helps our understanding of the policy process and the main actors involved in the EU governance of emerging security technologies (see the Introduction) and – through the explicit focus on the EDA and SEDE – naturally complements Fiott’s Chapter 2 on the role of the European Commission in EU defence research. The chapter is structured as follows: first, it presents the theoretical framework and the methodological underpinning of the research. The second section highlights the EDA and SEDE discourse. The third section discusses the impact of this ‘discursive coalition’ on EU defence research. The conclusion identifies some limitations of the study and assesses some policy implications.

Discursive institutionalism in EU defence

The EU defence field is a policy domain in which there are day-by-day complex interactions among member states and EU institutions. Indeed, formally, EU defence policy decisions are taken at the level of the Council. However, these decisions are made on the base of policy provisions, scenarios, assumptions and ideas determined by lower-level Brussels-based actors in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP; Tomic 2013: 224). Some studies have already highlighted how the intergovernmental nature of EU defence has been fading by a gradual socialisation among civil servants, bureaucrats and European and national officials with a similar educational background and identity (Cross 2011; Howorth 2012; Calcara 2017). Moreover, as emphasised above, supranational institutions are also gradually assuming a major role in shaping EU defence initiatives (Haroche 2019). Members of EU institutions, committees, working groups and agencies, although receiving a set of instructions from member states, are the ones who write the texts that are discussed by national decision makers. As noted by Tomic, these lower-level actors are the ones:

that have the fact power of controlling the discourse of the whole EU. They do this by materializing policies in the form of texts […]. While in the process the text and wording may change, the discourse is mostly preserved.

(Tomic 2013: 224)

Given these considerations, a discursive perspective has a great potential to investigate the Brussels-based institutional context. In this regard, discourse can be defined as ‘the space where intersubjective meaning is created, sustained, transformed and accordingly, becomes constitutive of social reality’ (Holzscheiter 2014: 145). Schmidt’s (2008, 2010) discursive institutionalism is a useful conceptual framework to address how European institutions produce discourse in the defence domain. Briefly defined, discursive institutionalism deals with the substantive content of ideas and the interactive processes of discursive and policy argumentation in institutional contexts. Hence, this approach is able to connect the role of discourse to specific institutional settings, a crucial factor in the European security governance, in which there are multiple and overlapping institutions and centres of authority (see the Introduction).

Discursive institutionalism accounts for two types of discourse: coordinative and communicative. The coordinative discourse ‘consists of the individuals and groups at the centre of policy construction who are involved in the creation, elaboration and justification of policy and programmatic ideas’ (Schmidt 2008: 310). In contrast, the communicative discourse occurs in the political sphere, where individuals and groups inform and persuade the public with regard to these ideas. Since in EU defence there is little public input, I investigate the coordinative discourse in policy creation prior to decision-making. Investigating the coordinative discourse among EU defence institutions permits us also to shed light on the role played by individual agents within discursive practices (Rayroux 2014: 387). Indeed, the coordinative discourse concerns the policy actors (civil servants, bureaucrats, elected officials, experts), who elaborate a discourse on policy priorities. Moreover, these actors often join in discursive coalitions (Lehmbruch 2001), advocacy networks (Sabatier 1998) or epistemic communities (Haas 1992), to help them to connect and to circulate ideas in the policy field. Discursive coalition is the most general way of conceiving such discursive communities and of analysing the ‘extra discursive practices from which social constructs emerge and in which the groups of policy actors who construct the new social idea or narrative’ (Schmidt 2010: 14). Hence, the chapter aims to identify the coordinative discourse of the EDA and the SEDE in promoting defence research at the EU level, with particular attention to the role of individuals connected as the basis of a shared policy enterprise.

Discursive institutionalism has also specific methodological implications. In order to identify the discourse of EDA and SEDE, I examine official releases, research reports, strategy statements and political speeches produced by the two institutions. The analysis takes into consideration the period from 2004 (the year in which both EDA and SEDE were institutionalised) to 2018. In order to discover the internal logic of the discourse, I look for ‘points of legitimation’ in texts, meaning those claims that seem ‘evident, natural and indisputable’ and that serve to build a consistent discourse (Hansen and Sørensen 2005: 101). In addition, I collect media reports using the Factiva database for the period 2004–2017 and examined the proceedings of the European Parliament in the last three legislative mandates (2004–2009, 2009–2014, 2014–2018). I also conducted five semi-structured interviews with EDA and SEDE’s members in Brussels.

The economic rationale

Market forces, globalisation and transatlantic competition

Arms market globalisation is presented as the main reason why it is impossible to sustain national defence–industrial policies. In this regard, the essential premise of the EDA’s discourse is that the arms market is moving towards a progressive privatisation and liberalisation. In the European Defence Agency’s ‘An Initial Long-Term Vision for European Defence Capability and Capacity Needs’ (LTV), armaments globalisation is depicted as ‘an irreversible trend’ (EDA 2006: 8), which will produce ‘winners and losers, as between countries and regions’ (EDA 2006: 11). This trend towards globalisation will force European producers towards intra-regional collaboration, if they want to maintain their competitiveness in the market. The Agency’s officials stressed that: ‘we recognise that a point has now be reached when we need fundamental change in how we manage the “business aspects” of defence in Europe – and that time is not on our side’ (EDA 2007: 1). Moreover, the EDA points out that:

We cannot continue routinely to determine our equipment requirements on separate national bases […]. This approach is no longer economically sustainable – and in a world of multinational operations, it is operationally unacceptable, too.

(EDA 2007: 1)

In other words, the Agency is developing a discourse that totally accepts the premises of the neoliberal narrative, for which defence firms will ‘naturally’ follow the laws of the market and will become more oriented to the global market (Oikonomou 2012). As highlighted by Barrinha (2010), the defence market has been subjected to a process of ‘normalisation’, similar to the neoliberal market dynamics that predominate in other areas of the international economy. As stated in the LTV:

Government has a very special relationship with the defence industry […]. But less and less does it remain owner; and, as defence companies move progressively from government to private ownership, and as shareholder funds become increasingly prominent in the control of companies, so one may expect the normal³ laws of a globalised economy to apply; capital will migrate to optimise returns.

(EDA 2006: 31)

This deterministic vision of the future of arms production is also shared by individual EDA’s officials. Nick Witney, the EDA’s first chief executive, recognised: ‘it is no longer good enough to think just in terms of the national defence and industrial base’; but ‘we […] all start to think about the European industrial base as an entity in its own right’ (quoted in Barrinha 2010: 15). Similarly, in an article for RUSI Defence Systems, the former EDA’s Industry and Market director argues that ‘more interdependence is less an issue of choice than of necessity […] all recognise that self-sufficiency is no longer an option in defence. Competitive industries can no longer survive within national borders’ (Hammarström 2008: 90). Moreover, the EDA’s discourse has been also closely linked with the perceived increasing transatlantic competition in the defence–industrial sector. In this regard, the EDA’s LTV highlighted that ‘un-arrested, the trends point towards a steady contraction of the European defence industry into niche producers working increasingly for US primes’ (EDA 2006: 31). This argument was also repeatedly pointed out by Domecq, the current EDA’s chief executive: ‘if we do not take action, the EU defence and technological industrial base will wane and we risk becoming a continent of subcontractors. This will cost us dearly’ (2015: 2). Moreover, the EDA constantly warns of the lack of reciprocity between US and EU defence–industrial bases, especially for what concerns access to advanced technologies, arms exports and rules governing investments and property rights. According the EDA:

We recognise that the problem of accessing the US defence market, and of establishing balancing technology exchange across the Atlantic, make it natural and necessary for Europeans to cooperate more closely to ensure the future of their own DTIB.

(EDA 2007: 2)

A similar discourse is promoted by SEDE members. In 2011, the Lisek Report highlighted the fact that defence industry cannot be sustainable on a national basis and ‘deplores the fact that, while a certain level of concentration has been achieved in the European aerospace industries, the land and naval equipment sectors are still overwhelming fragmented along national lines’ (Lisek 2011: 11). SEDE has also been particularly active in showing the potential economic benefits of defence–industrial cooperation. Through a series of studies promoted by the Parliamentary Research Service on the ‘Cost of Non-Europe in Defence’ (Küchle 2006; Ballester 2013) and on ‘The Impact of the Financial Crisis on European Defence’ (Mölling and Brune 2011), SEDE has repeatedly pointed out the waste of financial resources on duplicative military capabilities. These studies have been important in shaping the SEDE parliamentary activity. As emphasised by Schlomach, the parliamentary assistant of Gahler (EPP), the study on ‘The Impact of the Financial Crisis on European Defence’, produced by the Stiftung Wissenshaft und Politik (SWP), served as the basi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: emerging security technologies – an uncharted field for the EU
• 1 The European Defence Agency and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence: a ‘discursive coalition’ for EU defence research
• 2 Financing rhetoric? The European Defence Fund and dual-use technologies
• 3 The security politics of innovation: dual-use technology in the EU’s security research programme
• 4 Drone surveillance, a dual-use practice?
• 5 Normative market Europe? The contested governance of cyber-surveillance technologies
• 6 European security in cyberspace: a critical reading
• 7 EU cyber defence governance: facing the fragmentation challenge
• 8 Europe united: an analysis of the EU’s public diplomacy on Twitter
• 9 Developing future borders: the politics of security research and emerging technologies in border security
• 10 Security meets science governance: the EU politics of dual-use research
• 11 The governance of dual-use research in the EU: the case of neuroscience
• 12 Managing security uncertainty with emerging technologies: the example of the governance of neuroprosthetic research
• 13 Drones and artificial intelligence: the EU’s smart governance in emerging technologies
• Conclusion: the governance of emerging security technologies – towards a critical assessment
• Index