The European Union has increasingly taken on a role as international security provider that extends beyond the geographical scope of its membership. This is clear from the wide range of military and civilian crisis management missions that the Union has undertaken, but also identifiable through its other policies, such as the European Neighbourhood Policy and development assistance, which have also to some extent become security focused. Yet, the role of the EU as an international security provider remains under-theorized and weakly understood.

The proposed book analyses the Union’s role as an international security provider in a comprehensive way developing theoretical as well as empirical grounding for the understanding of the making and implementation of EU security policy. The contributions in this book cover actors involved in the policy making process, the dynamics of this process itself, its outcomes (strategies and policies) and their impact on the ground. They examine the relevance of, and apply, existing theories of international relations, international security and foreign policy analysis to the specific case of the EU, investigate empirically how particular policies are formulated and implemented, and study the impact and effectiveness of the Union as an international security provider in a variety of cases compared. This book was previously published as a special issue of Global Society.