EURopean securitY and Defense: Industry, Capacity, and Evolution

ongoing

"TThe Jean Monnet Module: EURopean securitY and Defense: Industry, Capacity, and Evolution advances European integration studies by developing new theoretical and practical frameworks for understanding the EU's evolving role as a security actor. It builds directly on the successful 2021-2024 Jean Monnet Chair in European Security at Boston University by focusing on the ways in which the EU functions as a 21st century security state through its regulatory and infrastructural authority and networks rather than traditional military means.The project supports EU policy-making by demonstrating how the EU's market, legal, regulatory, and judicial mechanisms can leverage defense industrial supply chains and enhance strategic autonomy. The Module consists of three integrated activities: teaching a specialized course on ""The EU as a 21st Century Security Actor/State,"" conducting research for a book manuscript examining the EU's security capabilities, and organizing an annual workshop series on EU Defense Capabilities and Strategic Autonomy. Through these activities, the Module will reach students across disciplines, generate policy-relevant knowledge about contemporary security governance, and create dialogue between academic research and policy practitioners. The project particularly emphasizes how the EU's regulatory and infrastructural powers make it function more like other contemporary security states than previously understood, and via this lens, identifying which specific regulatory and market functions the EU lacks in order to create a robust defense industrial base as the foundation for future European strategic autonomy. For EU studies and beyond the academic output will connect EU integration literature to a political science state formation literature in order to generate practical insights for understanding the EU's evolving role in international security."