The paper analyses how the war in Ukraine has impacted Germany's security and defence policy and Germany’s role in the Euro-Atlantic security order. It focuses on how Berlin has shaped, adapted to, or resisted changes in its role as a shaper of the Euro-Atlantic security order and the European Union’s foreign and security policy in a world of increasing strategic competition. The end of the stability of the euro-Atlantic strategic environment has challenged Germany’s role as a status quo power, both in its European and transatlantic policies. The purpose of the paper is threefold: first, it assesses domestic changes in Germany’s security, defense and energy policies, and how Berlin, by shaping, adapting to or resisting change contributes to reshaping the EU’s foreign and security policy; second, it takes stock of Germany’s position vis-à-vis arms deliveries to Kiev and support for Ukraine’s bid for EU and NATO membership and its impact on the EU’s response to the war; finally, it focuses on how the bilateral relationship between Berlin and Washington has empowered or hindered the development of EU foreign and security policy in the euro-Atlantic context. As one of the EU’s most relevant members, Germany’s role is crucial in creating a post-war European security order that enhances the EU’s international actorness while ensuring that the US remains engaged in euro-Atlantic security. The focus thus is also on how Germany has delivered on the pledges Chancellor Scholz made 23 months ago in his ‘Zeitenwende’ speech, to step up Germany’s commitments as a reliable and pro-active European partner and transatlantic ally, and to actively shape the EU’s and transatlantic security cooperation.

The paper assesses the resilience of local state institutions to hybrid threats on the example of the Donbas frontline communities in 2014-2022. It is crucial for the state facing hybrid threats to ensure its institutional resilience and legitimacy since it becomes one of the primary targets during a hybrid war. Therefore, the research relies on a case study looking at four frontline towns in Donbas in 2014-2022. It examines how local governments adapted their legislative institutions to the challenges of hybrid war to preserve and strengthen their legitimacy. It uses a mixed method of quantitative content analysis to examine the legislative priorities for local institutions during hybrid warfare and frame analysis to look at the legislation implemented at the central and local levels of the Ukrainian government that aims to strengthen local institutional resilience to hybrid threats. The research is conducted within the theoretical framework of sociological institutionalism and uses the concepts of political legitimacy and hybrid warfare to assess their impact on institutional adaptability based on a case study.

The paper contributes to the literature on institutionalism in the hybrid conflict context by presenting a longitudinal case study that empirically assesses the interplay between legitimacy and hybrid warfare. The case study provides an analysis of lessons learned from an eight-year hybrid war struggle of the Ukrainian frontline communities, which is valuable for strengthening European security against hybrid threats and building up the resilience of the local communities that might become the targets of hybrid attacks.

While successful leadership in European integration has been analysed and explained to some extent, the reasons for its failure are still under-researched. Therefore, we ask in this paper how and why a leadership vacuum in regional integration comes about. Drawing on rational-functionalist propositions, we argue that the emergence of leadership fails if the realisation of a collective goal requires the would-be leader to compromise their individual interests. Empirically, we apply this argument to Germany’s role in the European Union (EU). While there is little doubt that Germany is in great demand to take the lead, the reasons for its frequent leadership rejection are puzzling – especially as recent research has shown that the German political elite would actually endorse a leading role for its country in the EU. Based on a fine-grained causal mechanism, the systematic collection and in-depth analysis of 220 media articles, and rigorous process tracing, we therefore compare Germany’s role in two EU crisis policies: the completion of Europe’s Banking Union – i.e. the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) – and the supply of arms to Ukraine. The results demonstrate in detail how vested interests prevent the provision of leadership for the benefit of all. Regarding Germany’s role in Europe, the paper thus highlights why many of the leadership demands directed at the EU’s largest member state might be misled. With regard to leadership research and practice in general, the paper provides an explanation for leadership vacuums in regional and international politics, and cautions against treating leadership as an altruistic sacrifice.

By triangulating recent press coverage since the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with two older multilingual, multinational case study sets, newswire coverage of journalist kidnappings and executions by ISIS in Syria and Iraq from 2012-2014, and broadcast news reports covering lone wolf terror attacks from 2014-2017 across Europe and North America – a unique phenomenon has emerged: the individuation of geopolitical conflict in terms of “individuals at risk” and “risky individuals”.

A tactic of Russia’s hybrid war turned hybrid empire exploits the fundamental social contract of liberal democracy by making the smallest political unit of Western society – the individual whose life and rights must be protected – a target. Whether Belarussian, Ukrainian, or American – athletes, activists, and journalists are detained in spectacular ways as emblematic political pawns. In parallel to covering this, the Western press focuses on numerous classes of individuals – Ukrainian soldiers, refuges, and captured children, Russian emigres, protesters and the LGBTQI+ community – as the individualized everyman, everywoman, everychild that similarly deserve rights.

Risky Individuals though are celebrated and derided in Western press in terms of their outsized influence on the war – Zelensky, Putin, Prigozhin, Musk – representing the other side of the equation. However, this contributes to the social contract of autocracy, wherein the singualrly powerful can relegate entire classes of risky individuals to unnamed masses as represented in the strategic communication of Russian state Media – the slander of populations as foreign agents, degenerate queers, Nazis, and terrorists – justify revanchist invasions of sovereign neighbors, mass conscriptions of racialized population, and wholesale repression across the Russian Federation.