Europeanization of British Defence Policy

Reviews / Votes

'The study of European defence policy has achieved voodoo status with its mysteries guarded by a high priesthood of analysts. Robert Dover has cut through with a work that is clear, focused and beautifully researched. He tells a complex story in a way anyone will understand and traces the history of the Labour Government's attempts to put new life into the European defence project. Not least, he puts all this into a context of "europeanization" and adds a seminal perspective for future students of the subject. The high priests will blanch when they read this; the rest of us will be very grateful.' Michael Clarke, King's College London, UK 'Dover has dug deep to provide us with a fresh and enjoyable look at Europeanization as it manifested itself inside the minds of Whitehall's defence and security mandarins over the last decade. The result is a study that combines commendable clarity with remarkable and compelling detail. Even experts in the field are likely to come away from this study with a substantially changed view of the subject.' Journal of Contemporary European Studies 'Why and how the British government came to embrace the European Security and Defence Policy under the Labour government of Tony Blair is analyzed authoritatively by Robert Dover in his study of the Europeanization of British defence policy from early 1998 to the aftermath of the Iraq War.' Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 'It is to Robert Dover's credit that he breaks established views by introducing a third great tradition in international relations theory, one of liberalism. To my knowledge he is the first person to do this...Dover puts forward an extremely interesting analysis of British motivations with regard to European defence between 1998 and 2003...The work is a formidable piece of research based on tens of interviews with key actors in British defence policy who will serve as an example to follow for the research community.' Etudes internationales