Description
In this paper we argue that the emergence of the European Defence Research Programme (EDRP) can only partially be explained by the neofunctionalist logic of spillover. Similarly, while activist critiques of the processes and the proximity of beneficiaries to policy-making raise important and under-studied issues, they too miss part of the wider picture. This is not simply a case of lobby capture. Instead, we suggest that drawing on Science and Technology Studies and the concept of socio-technical imaginaries helps to reveal how a particular future vision of defence technology has embedded itself into EU thinking over decades, and currently is gaining material reality in the EDRP. We argue that this is problematic but that our reading opens up space for challenge by those who disagree with the EDRP, as has been the case with other visions of technology-driven futures.
