Description
This paper will explore the utility of a historical institutionalism as a theoretical perspective for understanding European security dynamics. A variety of theories of international relations have been applied to the analysis of European security since the end of the Cold War, including realism, liberalism, social constructivism, neo-liberal institutionalism and sociological institutionalism. Comparatively, there have been rather few efforts to use historical institutionalism to understand European security. This paper will apply key historical institutionalist insights and concepts to European security, in particular path dependency, critical junctures and punctuated equilibria. The paper will argue that historical institutionalism provides a more convincing explanation of the post-Cold War evolution of European security than realism, and that it provides insights that supplement existing liberal and social constructivist perspectives. In particular, the paper will argue that historical institutionalism: helps us to understand how and why Europe has moved beyond realist assumptions of historical patterns of conflict; highlights the importance of agency and contingency during critical junctures in European security; leads us to expect institutional layering, which has, indeed, been an important feature of post-Cold War European security; and helps to explain the endurance of important sub-optimal characteristics of European security institutions.
