Explaining the European Union’s CSDP Military Operations: European Struggle for Autonomy

This PhD thesis aims at explaining why the European Union intervenes in some crises while abstaining in others by examining CSDP military operations and inactions from the perspective of the Struggle for Autonomy (SFA) theory. The research focuses on the period between the publication of the 2003 European Security Strategy and the 2016 Brexit referendum. The SFA theoretical framework is a structural approach, a modified version of neo-realism. SFA theory assumes that states determine their behaviour according to their position in the distribution of power in an anarchic international system. Therefore, systemic conditions lead states to seek autonomy within the self-reliance dynamics of this structure. As a result, the thesis uses a focused, structured comparison of case studies such as EUFOR Althea, EUNAVFOR Atalanta, the Libyan Civil War, and the Annexation of Crimea. These cases are focused because they examine how the strategic choices of EU members are affected by specific systemic conditions in the concentrated power structure led by the US. They are structured because each case study begins with the identification of systemic conditions, examines the desired strategies and goals of EU members at the initial stages, and highlights how they recalibrate their positions under the current systemic conditions. Ultimately, the CSDP action or inaction emerges as a policy outcome. In other words, this approach helps to understand how changes in the orientations of the superpower in concentrated power structures shape the specific systemic conditions of the cases, which in turn shape the strategic choices of EU members, and reveal whether a CSDP operation is likely or not.