From Crises to Political Opportunities: Security Challenges, Brexit, and Europeanisation in Defence

Since 2016, the EU has announced a series of decisions on European defence cooperation. These announcements coincided with the “Brexit” vote, suggesting that there is a direct causal link between the departure of the UK - traditionally an obstructing country - and those decisions referred to as historical. This article questions this causality by identifying the other factors that led to the opening of a political window of opportunity at the European level in 2016, using John Kingdon’s framework. We combine the “policy streams” approach with French approaches on Europeanization to show, at the micro level, how national and community actors have used this window of opportunity for strategic, cognitive and legitimation purposes.