Centering Peripheries: Rethinking Inclusion and Exclusion in European Security

Research on the European security system peaked around the 1990s, when the collapse of the USSR triggered a system-level transformation in European security relations (e.g., Buzan & Little 1993, 2000; Buzan 1991; Adler 1998; Baylis 1998). Today, another “transformative moment” is unfolding, marked by the end of cooperative security with Russia, a new era in transatlantic relations, growing internal divisions within Europe, and the evolving roles of both the EU and NATO in European security. These changes materialise, among others, in shifting membership within the two organisations and in the dynamics of security cooperation across Europe. Such developments underscore the need for updated conceptual tools to capture the nuances of ongoing transformations in the European security landscape and their implications for diverse actors within the security system. Anticipating the next wave of security system literature, recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of foregrounding the perspectives of Europe’s peripheries, whose views on security have long been marginalized (e.g., Mäklsoo 2023; Lehti 2023; Kazdobina 2024). Critical theorists argue that asymmetries in knowledge production are not separate from policymaking; rather, these biases shape security arrangements and, ultimately, generate security problems themselves. The European security system prior to the 2020s was largely oriented around the needs of Eurasian power centres, failing to provide security for the regions situated between them (e.g., Hendl 2022; Oksamytna 2023; Karjalainen 2024). For example, until 2022 Ukraine was excluded from both EU and NATO accession processes as well as broader opportunities for security cooperation and support. The opening of membership perspectives and increased support in 2022 marked a significant shift in its position within the European security system. This article contributes to the ongoing effort to update the literature on the European security system by addressing two key questions: first, is the inclusion and/or exclusion of peripheries in European security arrangements changing; and second, if so, how can both this inclusion/exclusion and the forms of change be conceptualised? The analysis traces contemporary dynamics in the European security system from the point of view of peripheral states, including their struggles with dependencies (a form of inclusion and cumulative change), processes of decoupling (a form of exclusion), and temporary formats of cooperation on specific security problems (which may produce pendulum-like shifts between inclusion and exclusion). While building on earlier security system scholarship, the research primarily employs grounded theory to examine and conceptualise the evolving dynamics of the European security landscape.