Problematising EU Cybersecurity: Exploring How the Single Market Functions as a Security Practice

Abstract

This article furthers the debate between European Studies and Critical Security Studies by demonstrating how European Union (EU) single market integration functions as a security practice in the area of cybersecurity. It explores how the EU has rendered digitisation as a security concern and cybersecurity emerged as an object of EU governance by developing an analytical approach based on problematisation. Situating the problematisation approach in the genealogical tradition of Foucault, it argues that it provides us with an analytical toolbox enabling inquiry into the conditions that make contemporary security problems possible, powerful and changeable. Tracing EU security problematisations of digitisation over four decades, it shows how the single market has come to function as a security practice and stresses the political implications of it. The final part of the article re‐problematises the findings to afford insights into how they can be rethought at the intersection of European Studies and Critical Security Studies.