INTEGRATION OR DIFFERENTIATION: A NEOFUNCTIONALIST ACCOUNT OF THE EU’S DEFENCE STRUCTURE USING FUZZY SETS

The EU makes efforts to strengthen its capabilities in security and defence. This article sheds light on the trends of the defence element of the CSDP regarding integration or differentiation through an approach that embodies both qualitative and quantitative features. It is based on examining official EU documents from 1992 to 2020 using fuzzy sets to reveal if and how these documents reflect integration dynamics in discrete dimensions (political, procedural, economic, and military) that all together coformulate the EU’s defence complex. Advancing a neofunctional analysis, this article argues that there is a positive stance for cooperation in defence matters without bestowing new competencies to supranational entities, thus pointing to differentiation rooted in a dominant retrenching option, following Schmitter’s elaborated version of the spillover effect. Nevertheless, cultivated and functional spillover signs are also found. These signs might push for full integration differently in each discrete dimension of the overall defence structure by generating non-negligible spillover effects.