Schilde on The Political Economy of European Security

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Kaija SchildeAssistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, discussed her new book, The Political Economy of European Security  (Cambridge University Press, November 2017), as part of the Pardee School Research Seminar Series on April 23, 2018. 

The Political Economy of European Security draws on industry documents, interviews, interest group data, original survey, and comparative political theory to demonstrate that interest groups can change the outcomes of developing political institutions because they provide sources of external capacity, which in turn can produce authority over time. 

“In the European context, mobilized interest groups often create informal institutions like think tanks or industry associations, and then those informal institutions provide the developing state with expertise, with resources, with external capacity that it didn’t otherwise have,” Schilde said. “In the EU context, this means interest groups under certain conditions gave the EU a capacity it didn’t have that member states didn’t give it legally. So in some areas the EU is doing more with less, and that more is coming from informal institutions.”

Schilde said the book attempts to develop a better understanding of the relationship between private actors and international institutions in global governance as international institutions take on aspects of statehood once in the sole domain of nation states. The book explores how the presence of interest groups change EU governance outcomes.

“When you think about interest groups normally you think about how they want laws change or how they want there to be a different regulation over something,” Schilde said. “In developing states, in state-building and in new political environments, they often can change institutions and how the rules of the game are formed if they are there in the beginning.”

According to Schilde, The Political Economy of European Security was written to be of interest to scholars outside of EU studies in addition to policymakers and academics trying to understand the phenomenon of EU lobbying. It is intended to appeal in particular to non-governmental organizations keeping track of lobbying, influence and issues of corruption in EU affairs as data in the book allows for evaluation of the relationship between organized interest groups and EU policy authority.

“I basically used a lot of theories of state-building and institutional change to talk about what the relationship is between private actors and a developing nascent public institution,” Schilde said. “I position myself in this way by talking about interest groups in Europe as those that might be doing more than just potentially lobbying for small policy changes.”

Schilde’s research interests involve European and transatlantic security, the political economy of defense and security markets and industries, EU lobbies and interest groups, and the role of private nonstate actors in national and international security. Learn more about her here.

The Pardee School Research Seminar Series is a forum for faculty and students to discuss and receive feedback on ongoing research. The series is a mix of presentations, works-in-progress sessions, and research workshops. Faculty and students based at BU and elsewhere are invited to present and attend the Research Seminar Series. Anyone interested in presenting should send an e-mail with name, affiliation, and a presentation description, with “Pardee Seminar” in the subject line, to: Mahesh Karra.