Observatory members Robert Kissack (IBEI), Eva Michaels (Leiden University) and Óscar Fernández (Maastricht University) have published an article in the Journal of European Integration. Therein, they provide a study of national parliamentary debates in 13 EU member states of eight CSDP military deployments underway between 2016 and 2021. The article reviews discussions about whether, and why, to send troops on EU missions and operations, and the extent to which these debates differ from expectations in the literature derived from involvement in NATO operations. The survey includes small states, which have been previously excluded from such analysis. Drawing on a dataset of 411 statements by national parliamentarians from across Europe, the article employs eight discursive frames to understand how MPs articulate their acceptance (or not) of CSDP deployments. The authors supplement this with detailed data on national troop contributions. They find that CSDP debates in national parliaments resemble those of ‘high-salience’ deployments when considering frame usage and party position. The article also presents limited evidence supporting the claim that small states frame deployment debates similarly to large states.
Robert Kissack, Eva Michaels and Óscar Fernández publish article in the Journal of European Integration.
