The Identity of the European Union as an International Security Actor

This thesis looks at Security Sector Reform (SSR) missions of the European Union (EU). These missions are focused on reforming the security sector in states that are not capable of providing security to its citizens. This thesis found that there is a lack of academic literature that is linking the identity of the EU to specific SSR missions. Besides, this thesis also found that the academic literature on SSR missions lacks theoretical explanations. This thesis fills these gaps, as it is analysing the SSR missions of the EU to find out what kind of international security actor the EU is in these missions. This analysis is done by looking at three different types of powers, namely Normative Power, Realist Power and Liberal Power. The identity of the EU within the SSR missions can be revealed by looking at which kind of power the EU applies during its SSR missions. This thesis used a combination of congruence analysis and causal-process tracing to analyse documents of specific SSR missions. A coding framework that was connected to the different types of powers, was used to find out which power was dominant. This thesis found that the EU applies Normative Power the most frequently during the analysed SSR missions. It can therefore be argued that the EU is a normative international security actor in its SSR missions.