New edition of Ginsberg's book released
A new, second edition of The European Union in Global Security: The Politics of Impact, by Roy H. Ginsberg, professor of government at Skidmore, and Susan E. Penksa, professor
of political science at Westmount College, has just been released in paperback by
Palgrave Macmillan.
In the first edition of this book (released in February 2012), the authors identified
and explained the drivers of and brakes to EU foreign-security action and offered
methods of assessment to ascertain influence. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis
of EU security operations, the authors concluded that the EU has become a niche international
security provider. Their thesis was confirmed in late 2012, when the EU received the
Nobel Peace Prize “for over six decades of having contributed to the advancement of
peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”
Javier Solana, former Spanish foreign minister, former NATO secretary general and
first high representative of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy,
authored the book's foreword.
The 2014 edition updates the earlier volume and features as a cover illustration
a camp for internally displaced persons in the Republic of Georgia that was taken
by the authors. The camp houses Georgian refugees who originally lived in South Ossetia
until Russia “wrenched the territory from Georgia in a brief war in 2008 and blocked
the return of these people to their homes,” explained Ginsberg.
A number of practitioners and scholars have provided highly favorable assessments of the book. Jamie Shea, NATO deputy assistant secretary general, called it “a pathbreaking analysis of the EU’s contribution to global security.” And John Peterson, professor of international politics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, said that the book “shows both how the Union makes a genuine difference in global security governance, as well as its limitations and (sometimes) pathologies.” He called it “essential reading” for serious students of EU foreign policy.
Ginsberg, an internationally known scholar of the EU, holds the Jean Monnet chair in European Integration Studies at Skidmore. Penska is also a senior associate at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels and an international security and development consultant.
