Transaction Costs and Security Institutions

Examines international cooperation in European security from a transaction cost economics perspective. This book addresses the puzzle of how to approach differing institutional preferences. It argues that the reduction and limitation of transaction costs was the primary determinant of security preferences.

"This is an immensely ambitious book. Rejecting as inadequate and unconvincing realist, liberal-intergovernmentalist and constructivist approaches to ESDP, Weiss embraces political economy to argue that European states embarked on cooperation as a conscious exercise in reducing current and future transaction costs in the provision of collective security. Exhaustively researched and densely informed with social science theory, the book will be fiercely debated by scholars of both international relations and European integration."

• Jolyon Howorth, Visiting Professor of Political Science at Yale, USA and Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics ad personam and Emeritus Professor of European Studies at the University of Bath, UK

"One of the few theory-guided studies on EU defense cooperation and a major contribution to the literature essential reading for students of European and international defense cooperation."

• Markus Jachtenfuchs, Professor of European and Global Governance, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany

"In this innovative study, Moritz Weiss applies the tools of transaction cost economics to the analysis of the changing security preferences of the most powerful European states in the decade following the end of the Cold War. The approach not only provides a compelling explanation for the overall emergence and design of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) but also the particular form of military cooperation that ensued."

• James Davis, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Institute for Political Science, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

"Combining theoretical rigor with empirical depth Transaction Costs and Security Institutions is a must for anyone interested in the complex history of the European Defence and Security Policy (ESDP)."

• Bernhard Zangl, Professor of Global Governance and Public Policy, Ludwig-Maximilans-University (LMU) Munich and Speaker of the Munich Center on Governance, Communication, Public Policy and Law (MCG), Germany

  Autorentext
  MORITZ WEISS Senior Fellow at the Centre for Security Economics and Technology (C SET) and Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science, University of St Gallen, Switzerland. His articles have appeared in journals including the Journal of International Relations and Development and Cooperation and Conflict.

  Inhalt
  PART I: PREFERENCES, SECURITY INSTITUTIONS AND TRANSACTION COSTS IN WORLD POLITICS Introduction Theorising Preference Formation for Institution-Building in European Security Transaction Costs and Security Institutions PART II: UNRAVELLING THE EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY (EDSP) The Demand for a Security Institution: German, British and French Perceptions of the Environment in the 1990s Germany - From Defending the Alliance's Territory To Crisis Management for the Union Great Britain - From Opposing the Union towards a Subordinated ESDP France - From Gradual WEU Integration to Full-Scale ESDP Germany: An Incrementally Decreasing Willingness to Bind the Country Great Britain - From No EU Security Policy To a Purely Intergovernmental ESDP France - A Consistently Intergovernmental Approach towards ESDP PART III: TRANSACTION COSTS AND SECURITY INSTITUTIONS: ESDP UNRAVELLED Alternative Explanations and Theoretical Scope of the Transaction Costs Framework Conclusion - Theory-Development in the European Security and Defence Policy