A geopolitical analysis of the 2014 European Union Maritime Security Strategy between classical realism and commercial liberalism

Which theory of international relations (classical realism or commercial liberalism) best explains the adoption of 2014 Maritime Security Strategy (MSS)? This research question drives the current master’s thesis and explains the author’s interest in the maritime dimension of the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy. Overall, previous scholars have analysed maritime security from an international point of view (Germond, 2015), from the humanitarian perspective of saving lives at sea (Riddervold, 2014), from the Somali case study about piracy (Cordner, 2010) and from the analyses of its risks and threats (Bueger, 2015a). The primary methodology for investigating a similar topic is interviewing policymakers, military officers and civilians working for maritime non-governmental organisations (Riddervold, 2018). However, this study involves analysing the official EU’s documents and national military strategies published in the timeframe between the first European maritime operation, 2008 Atalanta, and the adoption of the MSS in June 2014. In order to carry out a similar study, the researcher has proposed a total of six propositions, derived from the analyses of the two theories, and has applied the so-called “congruence analysis” to find which empirical observations were more traceable, that is, more congruent with the theoretical hypotheses. Classical realism expects that states want to maximise their security in the maritime domain. On the other hand, commercial liberalism expects that the strategy was adopted for economic motivations. In the end, the author has found evidence for the congruence between the liberal propositions and the empirical observations so this theory was more suited in explaining the adoption of the maritime strategy. Out of a total of ninety-six documents analyzed and one hundred and forty-seven total codes found, the author could conclude that the "Trade" motivation was identified more than any of the other five, for a total of 34 retrieved codes. This result has shown that the main driving force, for the adoption of the maritime strategy, was the trade at sea.