What Does the Module Cover?

European Security: Theories, Institutions, Issues is designed to provide students with a master’s level understanding of recent issues, challenges and institutions of the post-Cold War European security order. It examines both mainstream and critical approaches to security and explores how helpful they are to understand simultaneous, multifaceted and diverse challenges to peace and security in the European Union and in its wider neighbourhood.

In this respect, after discussing the concepts of security and Europe, the course first presents a critical overview of the history of European security from World War II up to the present time. The course will then examine traditional and critical approaches to international security by particularly focusing on their analyses on the conventional and new risks and threats shaping the post-Cold War European security order. Having provided students with an evaluation of different theoretical approaches to European security, the course then applies these insights in order to better understand:

1. the roles played by the crucial institutions of the contemporary European security order (NATO) OSCE, European Defence Agency (EDA) and the EU.

2. the potentials and limitations of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence policy.

3. a range of specific contemporary issues (immigration and the large-scale movement of refugees to Europe, environmental degradation and energy security) in relation to the major security concerns in the EU’s immediate neighborhood including Russia, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions;

4. the historical evolution and the current issues of the security relations between Turkey and the EU-Europe.