European transnationalism between successes and shortcomings: threats, strategies and actors under the microscope

This article introduces the Special Issue ‘European transnationalism between successes and shortcomings: Threats, strategies and actors under the microscope’. Specifically, it focuses on transnationalism in terms of a key concept to be deployed while seeking to decode and evaluate EU political and legal governance-related choices, and particularly those made to address cross-border security threats. In doing so, it first explains the choice of ‘transnationalism’ as focal point while referring to the current momentum, namely legal and political developments that have recently taken place or are currently under consideration. In this context, it looks both at current and diachronic transnational challenges, such as terrorism and irregular migration. Second, it explores the links between law and politics with respect to security and transnationalism, in order to present the background of this Special Issue as well as its added value. Third, it provides an overview of the studies included in the latter and explains how those are connected to each other, while seeking to identify which threats, strategies and actors shall be put under the microscope.