When security elites deal with politicians: rethinking practices from the perspective of security-politics relationships

ABSTRACT This article examines how security-politics relationships play out in the routines of security elites when confronted with political decisions pertaining to European security cooperation. To do so, the article reflects upon British debates about police and judicial cooperation in a post-Brexit Europe along with debates on the 2014 opt-out from Justice and Home Affairs. How security elites respond to political decisions is investigated from a sociological lens that mobilises lessons from Norbert Elias. The article thus shows how security elites play out distinct roles and conduct distinct types of work when embedded chains of interdependence with professionals of politics that define what legitimate security cooperation is; a neglected aspect in bureaucratic politics and practice turn literature, and Critical Security Studies. It also exposes how security elites fight for EU-led cooperation because of attributes seemingly drawn from lived experiences in EU cooperation and triggered by the constraints of the relationships in which they are situated. The article thus complements existing debates on practices and security professionals by building knowledge on security elites and their routines from the angle of security-politics relationships.