Call for Articles “A new security architecture in Europe: the strategy of the European Union”

Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals nº. 137

Barcelona, May, 2023

Created in 1982, Revista CIDOB d'Afers internacionals is a cultural/academic journal on international relations which, publishing original works, is a pioneering publication in the Spanish-speaking world. Each issue, in the form of a monograph scientifically coordinated by experts, offers in-depth, interdisciplinary analysis of a current international issue. All articles undergo an external double-blind peer review process and are indexed and summarised in the leading academic databases of the social sciences, among them Scopus and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics). 

Subject and content of issue 137:

“A new security architecture in Europe: the strategy of the European Union”

Scientific coordinators: Adolfo Calatrava García (Complutense University) and Rafael Martínez Martínez (University of Barcelona)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has shattered the European security system, which was already in crisis after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014. These events may be understood as a critical juncture, which would also be an invitation to consider what Europe’s new security order will be.

In this situation, issue 137 of Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals aims to analyse, from an academic approach and by means of theoretical and/or empirical reflection, how this time of change is affecting the continent’s institutional security architecture, distribution of power, and the role that might be played by the leading actors, with particular attention to the European Union (EU).

Since the 1990s, Europe’s security system has been established around three mainstays: the EU, NATO, and the Russian Federation — in addition to other multilateral structures like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)— a combination that has determined the system’s architecture and structural dynamics over the last three decades. In the case of the EU, it has evolved as an institutional and political phenomenon in a process of integration with the aim of becoming a true, effective, unitary regional and global actor, over and above the individual reality of each of the European countries that comprise it. In this framework, the design and implementation of a joint security and defence policy have been essential elements.

The international context has greatly influenced this process. If, in 2014, the governments of the EU member states showed some areas of discord in their joint action against Russia, after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 the EU has been much more united in its external action and also in its determination to advance towards better integration in its security and defence policies. Hence, in March 2022, the EU approved the Strategic Compass for Security and Defence, a framework that aspires to greater autonomy, while also seeking improved coordination with NATO. In June 2022, NATO approved a new Strategic Concept at a time when both Sweden and Finland had applied to join the organisation. In all these scenarios the current Russian Federation under the political rule of Vladimir Putin is seen as a geopolitical rival and a major threat to European security.

Several questions have been raised and require answers from the academic community. How is the European security order being shaped and why? What are the effects of the war in Ukraine? How does fragmentation in the distribution of global power affect the regional order? What impacts does it have on the development of the EU’s common foreign policy? Why does the role of the EU as a unitary actor in the European security system grow or shrink? How might the framework of the EU’s relations with NATO be explained? And with Russia? What role is played by multilateral security structures like the OSCE and the European Political Community (EPC) and why? How do the political attitudes of European citizens affect integration in matters of security and defence?

On the basis of these questions, scholars from a range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, and especially from the field of international relations, are invited to present original papers on the following research topics in particular:

• Implications of the war in Ukraine for Europe’s institutional architecture for security;
• The role of the EU in Europe’s security order;
• Analysis of the institutional, material, and ideational elements involved in the integration of the EU’s security and defence policies;
• Attitudes of European citizens towards the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), shared threats, and the EU’s role as a global player;
• Analysis of the EU’s multilateral institutional security frameworks, for example the OSCE and the EPC;
• EU relations with NATO and Russia in the shaping of a security system in Europe.

Timetable of the call for articles:

30 June 2023: Deadline for submission of abstracts (300 words) and a brief summary of the authors’ CVs (100 words).  Proposals should be submitted electronically to publicaciones@cidob.org no later than the 30 June 2023.

15-20 July 2023: Authors will be informed of the result of the selection.

27 November 2023: Deadline for submission of completed papers (see Instructions and style guide).

 Selection process: 

• The Editorial Board—coordinated in this issue by Adolfo Calatrava García and Rafael Martínez Martínez—will make a pre-selection of articles on the basis of the abstracts received.
• Authors of the selected proposals will receive detailed instructions about sending the full texts by the agreed deadline.
• After a scientific filter, the final texts will undergo an external double-blind peer review process which will determine the final acceptance or non-acceptance of the articles for publication.
• Proposals should be submitted electronically to publicaciones@cidob.org no later than the 30 June 2023.
• Questions and queries may be submitted to publicaciones@cidob.org

Further conditions: 

• The papers must be unpublished original work.
• Abstracts will be accepted in Spanish and English.
• The articles will be published in Spanish with abstracts in English.