Oriol Costa editor of the special issues ‘Contestation and Politicization of European Foreign and Security Cooperation: New realities or same old routine?’ published in European Security
Oriol Costa (UAB-IBEI) edited together with Katja Biedenkopf (KU Leuven) and
Magdalena Góra (Jagiellonian University) the special issue ‘Contestation and
Politicization of European Foreign and Security Cooperation: New realities or
same old routine?‘ in the journal European Security.
Costa is also the co-author of the theoretical paper ‘Introduction: shades of
contestation and politicisation of CFSP‘.
Abstract: Contestation and politicisation are two concepts of increasing
relevance to European foreign and security policy (CFSP) scholars and
practitioners alike. However, reasonable doubts can be raised as regards this
growing literature: first, political conflict has always been part of CFSP, and
national and European politics have traditionally been at the centre of
research in this field. Second, exploring how the two concepts relate to
European foreign, security and defence policies is complicated by the fact that
foreign affairs more broadly do not meet all the criteria set by the literature
on politicisation, which usually requires that some form of mass mobilisation
takes place, or at least a high degree of salience. This article addresses
these concerns by looking at the changing politics of CFSP. As the introduction
to the special issue, we explore the hypothesis that contestation of European
foreign, security and defence policy is now more in line with the broader way
in which political conflict is being re-structured in Europe. If this is so,
political conflict over CFSP will more easily be associated with issues that
have an appeal beyond the narrow community of its practitioners and observers.