Strategisk Säkerhetspolitik. En jämförande studie av EU:s och NATO:s säkerhetsstrategier.

Abstract: In a time of global unpredictability, the vision of security and assertiveness is highly appreciated by the citizens of our societies. The European Security Strategy from 2003 and NATO’s new strategic concept of 2010 are intended to promote the EU and NATO as reliable security actors in a global reality of uncertainty. In this thesis, I compare the two generic security strategies to assess how the EU and NATO want to label themselves as security actors. The analysis consists of three analytical dimensions: identity, threat assessment and assessment of what strategies to meet the threats are the most effective. I base my analysis on the theory of securitization; that the actors themselves are involved in the process of creating the image of what security policy consists of. My comparison shows that, with different histories, institutional background and member states, the two actors differ in all three analyzed dimensions, despite the similarities in threat observation in the two security strategies.