Critical Constructivism and Political Sociology: Toward a Security and Defence Studies Application.

The aim of my paper is to understand the transformation in security management with the case study of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) of the European Union. I want to suggest another way of understanding ESDP beyond analysis of discourses and official documents. From my point of view, combining critical constructivist and sociological approaches present the most relevant path of thought for my study. If ESDP enters officially in an intergovernmental logic, in fact, it is no longer the exclusive field of the member States, but rather the result of social interactions between a broad variety of public and private actors at the national, transnational and European levels. So, we must look at the interactions, roles, aims and means of these actors which give indications on new security practices, processes and issues, the heuristic value is higher. I am looking at the practices of security with framework of critical security studies and with theoretical and methodological means of the political sociology which permit the analysis of sociology, socio-professional trajectories, taking role, struggles of position, inter-institutional games and process of identity construction of European actors, suggesting emergence at European level of a new socio-political space. At the moment, critical security studies focus of immigration policy and political sociology on social matters. I want to demonstrate that we can combine these two approaches to understand security and defence making process too, with the case of ESDP. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]