Ctrl+Alt+Defend : A Comparative Study of Path Deviation in Defence Policies of Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands After the Ukraine War

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Sweden and Denmark made historic policy changes by joining NATO and the Common Security and Defence Policy of the EU. The Netherlands only increased the budget for the Armed Forces. Scientific literature discusses various arguments of this kind of policy processes. One argument is by combining Historical Institutionalism and the Multiple Streams Framework to develop the concept of path deviation. To explain this phenomenon the following research question is answered: How do institutional legacies and policy-making dynamics shape national defence responses to external security shocks? This case study of Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands is answered using various news articles, government documents and parliamentary debates. This research shows that path deviation requires the alignment of the problem, policy and political streams in the Multiple Streams Framework with the problem stream as the essential trigger. Policy communities shape the direction and content of policy proposals by determining the range of feasible alternatives, which are inherently linked to the institutional frameworks affected by the change. Policy entrepreneurs advocate for certain policy change to deal with the problem situation which creates attention and support in the needed parts of the various streams and policy communities. The Swedish and Danish cases show that when these elements align, path deviation occurs. In contrast, the Dutch case illustrates how the absence of the three streams leads to no policy change.