Democracy and European Justice and Home Affairs Policies from the Cold War to September 11

Abstract

European Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) integration can be characterized with reference to a number of interrelated phenomena, none of which is peculiar to the EU but all of which are defined by its unusual structure and policy-making framework. ‘Securitization’ describes the way in which security concerns have been privileged in policy-making, often to the detriment of competing social, economic and foreign policy goals. ‘Europeanization’ describes the progressive treatment of JHA issues at a European level. ‘Externalization’ is the process of the blurring of distinctions between policy areas which might formerly have been classified as almost exclusively ‘internal’ or ’external’ to the state. A fourth trend concerns the way in which democracy and human rights have been both subverted and promoted in efforts to safeguard the EU’s security.