Institutional responses to the changing European security order (inRESPONSE)

The Russian military invasion into Ukraine in 2022 marked a clear before and after in European security order. The invasion did not only entail that large-scale, inter-state armed conflict has once again returned to the European continent, with its attendant devastating societal impact on Ukraine and on Europe at large. It also constitutes an unravelling of the carefully crafted European security architecture, which had generally been seen until that moment as one of the world’s most successful and had been credited for Europe’s “long peace” after World War II. Institutional responses to the changing European security order (inRESPONSE) is a research project that investigates the conditions under which war breaks out, as well as the mechanisms which institutions use to restore peace, stability and order. inRESPONSE will pursue state-of-the-art research to map out and examine the very micro-foundations of dysfunctionality of Europe’s security architecture. We will produce a theoretical model to advance analysis on how political pressures inside institutions (EU, NATO and OSCE), and across institutions, result in a breakdown of the security upheld by overlapping and networked security organizations. inRESPONSE will also determine how institutions (EU and NATO) can rebuild and/or re-tool the security order after breakdown, by examining the institutional responses (policies and practices) designed to restore post-2022 European security.