European Security and Crisis Management

The security environment of the 21st century is diffuse, complex and unpredictable, and threats are often asymmetric and transnational.

This course aims to develop an understanding of this environment and the challenges it poses for European security and crisis management. It focuses on threats such as climate change, forced migration, terrorism, cross-border crime, natural disasters, pandemics, and cyber incidents. By introducing the concepts of security community, widening security and transboundary crisis governance, the course explains the new demands put on European states and the European Union (EU), and other regional organizations such as the African Union. It analyses the driving forces and constraints for the creation of EU diplomatic, security, defence and crisis management capacities, and evaluates the balance between human rights and security measures.

European experiences are critically examined in the light of a comparative outlook on regional security cooperation across the globe. The course also studies the relationship between regional organizations and their member states, with a special focus on Sweden. To inspire the discussions and promote a
comprehensive outlook on current threats and capacity challenges, the course includes a simulation exercise on the EU’s role in a transboundary crisis.

Teacher

Prof. Magnus Ekengren is Professor of Political Science at the Swedish Defence University and Co-Director of the European Societal Security Research Group. He is a former Swedish diplomat and was previously Deputy Director at the Policy Planning Unit of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

His publications include The EU as Crisis Manager: Patterns and Prospects, with A. Boin and M. Rhinard (Cambridge University Press, 2013), and Explaining the European Union’s Foreign Policy: A Practice Theory of Translocal Action (Cambridge University Press, 2018).