The book is a timely investigation into the European security policy dynamic from the perspective of actors engaged in the contentious policy process. Instead of looking at security actors in isolation from one another, the book enquires into the practice of the policy process and maps out the constellations of formal and informal actors sponsoring concrete ideas on what European security should be about. The understandings of security shift and advocating a particular reading of security involves entering the political contest with actors advancing different conceptions. The contributors analyse these different modalities, overlapping scenes and shifting meanings that bring about EU security policies. Our case studies illustrate how these processes unfold both at the intra-EU level, where different institutions supply and endorse their security framings, and vis-à-vis the EU and its neighbours.

Foreword Gilles de Kerchove 1. Introduction: The Politics of European Security Policies Xymena Kurowska and Patryk Pawlak Part 1: Policy, Politics and Security in Horizontal Policy Debates 2. EU Security Policies and the Pillar Structure: A Legal Analysis Vincenzo Randazzo 3. 'Solana Milieu': Framing Security Policy Xymena Kurowska 4. The European Security Agenda and the 'External Dimension' of EU Asylum and Migration Cooperation Meng-Hsuan Chou Part 2: Policy, Politics and Security in EU Relations with Third Parties 5. Network Politics in Transatlantic Homeland Security Cooperation Patryk Pawlak 6. Europol: A New Player in the EU External Policy Field? Gregory Mounier 7. Portraying Normative Legitimacy: The EU in Need of Institutional Safeguards for Human Rights Katrin Kinzelbach and Julia Kozma 8. The Securitisation of the EU's Development Agenda in Africa: Insights from Guinea-Bissau Marie V. Gibert 9. Postscipt: The Politics of the EU's Security Policies after the Lisbon Treaty Xymena Kurowska