Description
Previous studies have focused on the change and continuity of strategic culture in Europe and their impacts on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). However, there is no theoretical explanation for the change in strategic culture and no explicit mechanism from drivers to strategic cultural change. The study argues that crises represent windows of opportunity for strategic culture to change. It applies realist constructivism to develop an analytical framework for explaining change in strategic culture, followed by three hypotheses. The framework shows that within the EU, crises are likely to induce change in five dimensions of national strategic culture under conditions of systemic pressures and norm entrepreneurs. In order to test the framework, the study selects Germany, France, Poland, and Sweden as cases to identify their national strategic cultures before and after two crises: the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war. Assisted by qualitative and quantitative content analysis, the study aims to verify the three hypotheses and conclude how crises lead to strategic cultural change in the EU context.
