This paper looks at the institutional innovations and bureaucratic
struggles that led first to the creation of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) structures and then to their partial integration in the European External Action Service. What we call the EEAS project is not only an attempt at creating a European foreign ministry; it was also meant to spearhead a new way of managing crises that brings together diplomacy, defence, and development in a comprehensive approach to crisis
management. In particular, we focus on the convergence of military and civilian functions and consequently the relationship between military and civilian actors that is constitutive of the EEAS project. We analyze these institutional decisions that have important consequences for a comprehensive approach to crisis management in the light of a political sociology of institutions.
