Papers on political economy of security presented at EISS conferences and workshops, newest first. 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z https://eiss-europa.com/feeds/themes/political-economy-of-security.xml European Initiative for Security Studies https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-dynamics-of-defense-indigenization-state-private-relations-in-india-s-quest-for 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Yagnyashri Kodaru

In an era of hostile geopolitics, states of all stripes are striving to fortify domestic defense industries and secure defense supply lines. Despite increasing scholarly attention on national strategies of self-reliance—especially in rising powers in the global south—the concept and its associated policy of ‘defense indigenization’ (DI) remains little understood on a conceptual and empirical level. Notably, authors have studied broad variations in DI policies across states, while neglecting shifts in the roles of state and private actors over time. This fails to account for the complex and puzzling mix of protectionist and open-market liberalization policies that underlie many national DI strategies, warranting a deeper analysis of ongoing reconfigurations in the competencies of key defense industrial players. Using a case study of the Indian defense industry, this paper provides a unique conceptualization of DI that challenges current statist analyses and explores evolving state-private dynamics in contemporary DI approaches. Since 2014, under the Modi government, India has seemingly undergone renewed efforts at indigenization, central to which is the further liberalization of its otherwise state-led defense industry. In a systematic mapping of major weapons production, I track historical developments in DI policy and assess whether the “Make in India” campaign represents a critical juncture in state-private defense industrial relations. The findings suggest that India is on the cusp of major defense industrial transformations in its path to self-reliance, constituting an expanded role for the private sector despite persistent institutional and structural constraints. This empirical mapping can offer valuable insights into the political and industrial drivers of DI in rising powers in the Global South. The paper holds serious policy implications for India and other rising powers’ strategic positioning in the global order, contributing to broader debates in political economy and defense/security studies.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-examining-the-factors-behind-the-eu-s-defence-innovation-system 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Cezary Wereszko

The European Union’s defence innovation ambitions have evolved significantly since the early 2000s, driven by an increasing need for technological sovereignty amid the resurgence of great power competition. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further accelerated interest in defence R&D, drawing greater attention from both the public and private sectors within the EU. Taking the supranational perspective, rather than that of individual member states, this paper offers an inquiry into the current state of the European Union’s defence innovation system by examining the different factors shaping its development. External pressures, including the war in Ukraine and the assertive US foreign policy, act as catalytic factors, creating potential for superior defence innovation outcomes. A strong human capital base underpinned by academia and a network of technology hubs also contributes to the development of the defence innovation system. At the other end of the spectrum are the institutional factors. However, institutional constraints, including a complex regulatory environment and rigid public procurement processes, pose challenges to both public and private investment in defence R&D, limiting the EU’s ability to fully leverage its defence innovation potential.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-innovation-and-engineering-at-the-front-the-ukrainian-case-of-unmanned-systems 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Emilie Berthelsen

This paper aims to answer who has been at the centre of the development of Unmanned Systems in Ukraine following February 2022, and how these actors have become organised into constellations that enhance military adaptability. With private actors being central as funders, producers and suppliers of drones, Ukraine demonstrates the contemporary role of the state and the military in guiding and facilitating defence technological innovation. Using a case study approach, it provides an in-depth look at the Ukrainian efforts and challenges of rapidly scaling and localising the production of drones during the war, paying special attention to the role of engineer-soldier collaboration in facilitating continuous development. The Ukrainian example highlights that much of the innovative power is found in start-ups and industries outside the traditional defence-industrial pipeline, necessitating new solutions to bridge the gap. Realising the value of these actors, however, has relied on novel collaboration patterns. Initially, bottom-up initiatives by NGOs and volunteers dominated. While these demonstrated the operational potential of Unmanned Systems, the ad hoc nature hindered scaling. Gearing the bureaucratic infrastructure, including within the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the defence procurement agency, to sustain innovation required new defence industrial strategies and significant changes to processes and organisation, including the formation of the Unmanned Systems Force and industry-platforms like Brave1. This provides an example of large-scale and sustained military innovation in wartime. Studying these constellations of actors that have jointly contributed to the development and deployment of Unmanned Systems showcases concrete mechanisms for enhancing innovative capacity for defence purposes. Based on this empirically grounded examination, I argue that in an unpredictable strategic environment, boosting military adaptability that leverages the potential for rapid development of software-based systems requires the establishment of conduits to ease access for private companies to military feedback and testing prior to tender-based procurement.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2025-russian-countertrade-as-a-mechanism-for-promoting-arms-sales-and-diplomatic-infl 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z 2025-06-26T12:00:00Z Jonata Anicetti Shang-Su Wu Ron Matthews

Why and how does Russia engage in the arms trade? Scholars have largely focused on why Russia participates in the arms trade, often neglecting the equally crucial question of how it conducts this trade. Yet, understanding the mechanisms by which Russia promotes arms sales provides deeper insights into why it does so. While many portray Russia’s arms trade as driven by economic or strategic motivations, few examine the specific tools it employs, particularly defense countertrade, which includes non-monetary barter, counter-purchase obligations, and industrial or technological investments (offsets). This paper fills that gap by offering an eight-decade perspective on Russian arms trade practices, drawing on data and case studies to uncover a more nuanced set of motives. Russia integrates economic and political objectives in its arms trade, seeking not only to outcompete Western suppliers but also to expand or regain influence in various regions, circumvent Western-imposed sanctions, secure access to valuable resources, and sustain its military capabilities. Although barter and technological cooperation have long been part of its trade practices, Russia has only recently adopted offset practices in a systematic way. By leveraging defense countertrade,Moscow aims to stabilize, and potentially grow, its arms exports as global conditions shift.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-defence-offsets-and-the-global-arms-trade-explaining-cross-national-variations 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Jonata Anicetti

This book offers the first comprehensive study of defence offsets and its economic, security, political and theoretical implications. Originating in the second half of the 19th century, defence offsets – additional economic, industrial and technological benefits to states for buying foreign weapons – have since been a key feature of the global arms trade and defence industry. And yet, offsets are an underresearched and undertheorised phenomenon. This book fills this gap in the literature by offering the first general theory of defence offsets, as well as the first systematic analysis of the offset phenomenon. By building on the insights of scholars of defence economics and drawing from the International Relations liberal paradigm, as well as reviving and adapting Robert Putnam’s two-level game framework, the book proposes a liberal-rationalist theory of defence offsets. It then proves the worth of such a theory through Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of fifty-four fighter aircraft transfers from 1992 to 2021 inclusive, and three in depth case studies addressing offsets negotiated and agreed to as part of fighter aircraft competitions in Brazil, India and South Korea. This book will be of interest to students of defence studies, defence economics, security studies and International Relations.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-exploring-the-cybersecurity-policy-design-space-in-the-eu-a-mixed-methods-approa 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Mattia Sguazzini

Social scientists are increasingly focusing on the factors that explain the development, organisation, and enforcement of cybersecurity capabilities. However, a systematic analysis of these capabilities in terms of the policy instruments used has not been attempted so far. Which policy instruments can actors use? How do they vary between the institutions? How can the variation in the availability and use of capabilities be explained? This paper aims to answer these research questions using text-as-data techniques to analyse policy documents of EU Member States and European institutions. Reviewing the literature concerning the different phases of cybersecurity policy design, I develop a set of hypotheses within a general theoretical framework. I use mixed methods to cross-validate hypotheses and refine the theoretical framework. The data used are policy documents from 1990 to 2023, sourced from the online libraries of the UN, NATO, EU, and Member States, focusing on the cybersecurity policy sub-areas of Defence, Crime, Diplomacy, and Resilience. The identification of the policy instruments and the actors involved is conducted using Named Entity Recognition (NER) in the documents. Furthermore, I combine NER with a machine-learning method for estimating bureaucratic constraint variation to consider potential effects on implementation. Upon obtaining numerical values that represent the variety and frequency of policy instruments, I assess the consistency of the models corresponding to hypotheses through regression analysis. The findings offer a comparative analysis of state policy instruments within the EU’s supranational framework. The paper’s contributions are threefold: it provides a method for analysing the policies of individual states, considering the influence of supra-national frameworks, replicable in other policy areas; this methodological contribution follows the development of a theoretical framework that combines the literature of IR, policy analysis, IPE, and organisational studies in the field of cybersecurity; and it provides a systematisation of European cybersecurity policy documents.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-strategic-sensemaking-scanning-the-military-technological-edge 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Henrik Breitenbauch Jens Vesterlund Mathiesen

Increased strategic competition over technology puts defence innovation at the forefront of current national security and defence policy strategizing. A central issue in the defence innovation debate is how different types of countries – from advanced major powers such as the US, over catching-up states like China to middling powers such as Russia, Iran and India, and finally to small countries, often advanced innovators like Israel and Singapore – organise their defence innovation systems. Filling a gap in the literature which focuses on either great powers or small but great innovators, this article reconstructs the logic of strategic sensemaking in defence innovation for small states without a particularly strong defence and innovation portfolio. For small states who are unable to either develop advanced defence materiel on their own or to participate in but a few of the leading international (allied and partner) capability development programmes, technology scouting – scanning the military technological edge – is both crucial to their strategic sensemaking. We reconstruct three modes of technology scouting as integral to national defence planning and capability development decision-making. The argument adds to the academic agenda of defence innovation and the global technological aspects of strategic competition, and is relevant to policy makers redesigning defence innovation and materiel policies.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2024-technological-innovation-and-national-security-variations-in-public-private-rela 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z 2024-06-27T12:00:00Z Yagnyashri Kodaru Lorenz Sommer

In liberal market economies like the US and UK, private actors have come to play an indispensable role in the emergence of robust defense industries and the provision of security. States particularly rely on the private sector in areas of high technological innovation, such as arms production and cybersecurity. While technological innovation and the resulting public reliance on private expertise has been a common denominator, the emergence of public-private relations has been inconsistent across security sectors. Despite ideological parallels between the US and the UK, public-private relationships differ in the degree of consolidation or autonomy, and standardization of practices, between the state and private actors. In this study, we map these variations in the consolidation of relationships between public and private actors, attributing it to differences in institutional legacies and security pressures. Through case studies on the US and the UK, we trace the evolution of public-private dynamics in two security sectors, defense industry and cybersecurity, since end of the Cold War. We find that more entrenched institutional legacies in the military industry have led to a closer, less market-oriented position of private actors and greater dependence on the state through contractual relationships. Conversely, less entrenched institutional legacies in the nascent cybersecurity sector have contributed to a more market-oriented, stronger position of private actors vis a vis the state, as evidenced by ongoing challenges in regulating the private tech industry. Furthermore, we find that the changing nature of security pressures in the cyberspace could push states towards a (re-)integration of this sector into more consolidated defense military pipelines. This paper contributes to the growing literature on public-private-partnerships in security governance and offers insight into the nexus of state security and technological innovation in two historically different, yet connected security policy fields.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-industries-of-sovereignty-strategic-autonomy-defence-industrial-interests-and-th 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Salih Isik Bora Ediz Topcuoglu

Throughout the Macron presidency, the French government persistently used the ‘European sovereignty’ discourse to advocate for a ‘Europe of defence’. ‘Strategic autonomy’ is a core component of this broader discourse and refers to the EU’s capacity to provide for its own security needs. For the purposes of this article, we define ‘strategic autonomy’ as a point where the integration of core state powers in defence policy is advanced enough that EU member states can jointly conduct large scale military operations. This paper argues that the French government became a proponent of ‘European sovereignty’ not because of a genuine desire for strategic autonomy but because of defence industrial policy objectives. After he became president, Emmanuel Macron sought to create a continent wide protected defence market where non-EU companies are excluded to the benefit of France’s own defence industry. The ‘European sovereignty’ discourse was used to rationalize defence industrial protectionism and government intervention to favor EU-based producers, amongst which the largest are French defence firms. On the flip side, the French government’s interest in institutionalized cooperation with EU partners is far more limited than the ubiquity of the ‘European sovereignty’ discourse may suggest. In fact, the French government continues to avoid binding commitments at the EU level and seeks to preserve its ability to act unilaterally when it comes to *operational* -as opposed to *industrial*- aspects of defence policy. We use process tracing methodology in order to examine the formulation of French defence policy discourse and preferences in the 2017-2022 time period. Our argument on defence industrial interests is systematically tested against a competing explanation, namely that the French government pursues a long term plan to achieve European strategic autonomy. We make an extensive use of primary sources including official documents, speeches and more than 20 interviews with policymakers.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-outsourcing-security-managing-risk-national-security-states-and-the-privatisatio 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Kaija Schilde

21st century states have increasingly outsourced security and defense to the market, acting as regulators of the tools of violence rather than owners of the tools of violence. While the phenomenon is now recognizable and common, it remains puzzling because a core feature of modern states is their legitimate political authority to control the 'public good' of national security within their territory. Advanced industrial democratic polities such as the US, European states, and the EU, however, have transferred significant aspects of domestic and foreign security power to private, market actors. I argue that outsourcing has not been driven by strategy but by a changing risk tolerance on the part of security bureaucracies. In a reversal of how 20th Century states absorbed political, financial, and legal risk for their societies and markets, states—under certain conditions—are shedding their willingness and ability to absorb public goods across the board, including the public good of security. Decisions to outsource have occurred when government personnel made low-level decisions to cede the authority of their agencies to the market, due to transparency, accountability, legal reporting, or financial pressures on their bureaucracies. In a number of critical functions, sovereign security power is now disaggregated and diffused into the market, without sovereign or strategic prerogatives. This paper evaluates one of these phenomena: the diffusion of public-sector defense R&D funding from state bureaucracies to the private sector, in the form of private, industry R&D funding of military prototypes. It evaluates original cross-national data on industry self-funding of defense technology amongst advanced industrial states, including firms active in the European and North American national defense markets.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-the-us-hegemony-dilemma-and-european-missile-production 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Lucas Hellemeier

Thanks to its unparalleled defense budget, the United States possesses a comparative advantage in arms production. This confronts US allies with the US hegemony dilemma, a trade-off between efficiency and autonomy. Allies can procure comparably cheap high-end weaponry from US sources instead of securing more costly autonomy in arms supply. Overall, US defense industrial market power forces its allies to specialize in arms production, thus, to decide what kinds of weapon systems to produce on their own. Given this need to specialize caused by US hegemony in the defense industrial order, what explains US allies' defense industrial specialization? I confine my analysis to Europe since it represents an especially interesting case with its unparalleled regional economic and political integration and its relationship to the US shaped by geostrategic cooperation on the one hand, and industrial competition on the other hand. Furthermore, I focus on the missile sector, a rather understudied arms production sector compared to fighter aircraft and drones. I argue that since the US is the structural constraint that sets the conditions under which European defense industries operate Europeans seek to strike a balance between efficiency, i.e., buying American, autonomy, i.e., producing nationally, and cooperation. I leverage market size, understood as the national market but also the market countries expect to sell to, as the central variable explaining European missile production decisions. These production and export decisions have important political implications because they shape countries' foreign policies decisively. According to conventional wisdom, a country's grand strategy shapes its defense industrial policy. I argue that this causal relationship is more complicated and that a country's defense industrial policy has a profound effect on its grand strategy.

https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-the-united-states-and-the-eternal-dream-of-missile-defence 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z 2023-06-22T12:00:00Z Sanne Verschuren

Why and how do states decide to develop different weapon systems within a similar domain of warfare? For example, why does the United States invest in ever-more expansive forms of national missile defense, while France briefly dabbled in such matters and the United Kingdom has been reluctant to do so? Contrary to the assumption in the existing literature that states know the future threat environment and are able to develop suitable military technology in response to it, I argue that ideas, particularly those about the future, play a critical role in shaping states' decisions about military technology. Because the future is unknown, domestic actors imagine radically different future states of the world. These ideas—what I call “images of warfare,” consisting of actors' construction of future threat environment and their theory of victory—shape actors' preferences for weapons systems. Not all of these ideas, however, are equally influential. In order to transform their ideas into actual capabilities, actors need to build cross-cutting coalitions within the broader defense community around their “imagined security interests.” The ability of these actors to build such a coalition and funnel their ideas through the state's decision-making process is shaped by the political opportunity structure, more specifically the level of openness of the relevant institutions. I explore these dynamics through an in-depth case study of the development of missile defense capabilities in the United States from the 1980s until the mid-1990s.