The aim of this panel is to raise the question of the inequality in the political and democratic legitimization of the use of force among European countries. If European defense policies and the building of a Common Security and Defence Policy in the framework of the EU have been well documented for a few years, the question of how the European countries allow their military to use force inside and outside their territory and how they democratically control this use of force has been much less investigated until these days. Thus in a period where the armed forces are not only used for military multinational operations outside the national borders but also participate internally to the fight against terrorism, the question needs to be asked : how do the Europeans nationally control the use of force ? What is the role of their parliaments ? What room if left for the civilian society ? What happens at the EU level ? Why are there so many inequalities in the democratic control of the use of force in the European countries ? The idea here is to confront the institutionalist analysis (more precisely the historical institutionalist frame of analysis) to different national cases so as to understand what explains these differences among the EU member states.This panel will welcome both theoretical and empirical propositions of paper.