This book is the result of a truly collaborative project based on the synergies ofour common interest in the everyday making of European Union (EU) foreignand security policy. In the past, we have all conducted research on the innerworkings of the Brussels foreign policy machinery, and our findings havecollectively pointed to the interplay of situated, practical knowledge and norminternalization. The fact that so many of our past informants displayed aware-ness of the social dynamics of the complex institutional environment in whichthey operate spurred an interest into how such interactions are enacted in theeveryday management of contestation. The Swedish Institute of InternationalAffairs, to which we are all associated, provided a forum to compare, discussand develop our previous findings through engagement with theoretical tenetsof practice approaches and socialization theory in international relations andEU studies. As a token of the collaborative spirit in which this book has beenwritten, the book and the chapters bear the names of the authors in alphabeticalorder.