Patterns of Cooperation in the European Defence Sector – A Network-Approach-Based Investigation of EU Projects

In this paper, we introduce research results from our network-approach-based investigation of the European Union defence cooperation projects. After brief remarks on the background, the research problem, the conceptual and methodological issues, we focus on the structure of the cooperation network and introduce the territorial, institutional, and (sub)regional patterns of partnerships. The data analyses illustrate that an integrated but fragmented cooperation network could be explored, and in several aspects remarkable differences can be measured on country-, regional, and sub-regional levels implying that territorial and institutional factors might have an important role in this specific area as well.