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Transgovernmental networks and security policy coordination in North America and the European Union: A framework for transatlantic comparative research

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Abstract

This article outlines a new research agenda for the study of security policy coordination in Europe and North America. Despite the pressure to build coherent regional and transatlantic architectures to face common security challenges, since 9/11 the two regions have witnessed the coalescence of untidy bricolages of policy-coordination mechanisms—regional, sub-regional, and inter-regional; formal and informal; overarching and issue-specific; functional and dysfunctional. These dynamics raise relevant questions about how best to characterize, explain, and evaluate these network-driven types of policy coordination. Building on the literature on transgovernmental networks (TGNs), this article seeks to address these questions by proposing a comparative and cross-issue analytical framework that seeks to capture the particular forms and functions of existing security policy coordination initiatives across the Atlantic.

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Notes

  1. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni [17], Anderson and Sands [3] and Ackleson Lapid [2].

  2. Den Boer et al. [13].

  3. Ayres and Macdonald [5], Brunet-Jailly [9], and Anderson and Sands [3].

  4. Jönsson et al. [25], Börzel [8], Hollis [22], Cross [11], and Hillebrand [21].

  5. Christiansen and Neuhold [10] and Zaiotti [39].

  6. Slaughter [35] and Anderson and Sands [3].

  7. Scharpf [34], Slaughter [35], and Hillebrand [21]; for a counter-argument, see Moravcsik [30].

  8. Hooghe and Marks [23].

  9. This distinction between these two governance models also resonated with a parallel distinction between the traditional concept of “hard law” and increasingly important forms of “soft law,” which involved governance without formal legislation, through the coordination of reciprocal executive commitments and negotiated common practices. Abbott and Snidal [1] and Eberlein and Grande [14].

  10. Abbott and Snidal [1] and Warleigh-Lack and Rosamond [38].

  11. Jacobsson [24] and Eberlein and Newman [15].

  12. Egeberg and Trondal [16], Den Boer [12], Gaisbauer [18], Occhipinti [32], and VanNijnatten and Craik [37].

  13. Eberlein and Newman [15], Egeberg and Trondal [16], Slaughter and Hale [36], Bach and Newman [6], Levi-Faur [29], Blauberger and Rittberger [7], and Newman and Zaring [31].

  14. Research on regional security cooperation in North America proliferated after 9/11, but tended to be light on theory, and rarely engaged with the broader comparative regional security governance literature: for useful exceptions, see Hale [19] and Harvey [20].

  15. Keohane and Nye [27].

  16. Slaughter [35].

  17. Lefebvre [28].

  18. Ayres and Macdonald [5], Aspinwall [4], and Pastor [33].

  19. Börzel [8] and Kaunert et al. [26].

  20. Zaiotti [39], see also Jönsson et al. [25].

  21. Harvey [20].

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  1. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

    Brian Bow & Ruben Zaiotti

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Bow, B., Zaiotti, R. Transgovernmental networks and security policy coordination in North America and the European Union: A framework for transatlantic comparative research. J Transatl Stud 18, 177–189 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00041-2

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