EU Missions and Peacebuilding


Book Description

This book analyses the EU's approach to peacebuilding in its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions, and explores how this approach impacts on the EU's role in international conflict management. Peacebuilding carried out through CSDP instruments has become central to the self-conception of the EU as an actor in international conflict management. EU missions and operations have, for the most part, been deployed to promote peacebuilding efforts in post-conflict situations, in particular through capacity-building, reforms and rebuilding of state structures. This book focuses explicitly on the peacebuilding dimension of the CSDP while exploring why and how the EU has adopted peacebuilding in its CSDP actions as a norm and a practice. It analyses how peacebuilding in EU missions is conceptualised, designed, governed and implemented. The book examines the extent to which EU missions and operations reflect a normative and practical commitment of the EU to peacebuilding - that is to say, the extent to which CSDP instruments have been shaped by international peacebuilding norms and EU foreign policy. Drawing on empirical insights from decision- and policy-making processes in Brussels as well as from missions in Mali and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book offers critical perspectives on the EU's role as an international peacebuilding actor. This book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU policy, peace and conflict studies, security studies and international relations.




EU Missions and Peacebuilding


Book Description

This book analyses the European Union’s (EU) approach to peacebuilding in its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions, and explores how this approach impacts the EU’s role in international conflict management. Peacebuilding carried out through CSDP instruments has become central to the self-conception of the EU as an actor in international conflict management. EU missions and operations have, for the most part, been deployed to promote peacebuilding efforts in post-conflict situations, in particular through capacity-building, reforms and rebuilding of state structures. This book focuses explicitly on the peacebuilding dimension of the CSDP while exploring why and how the EU has adopted peacebuilding in its CSDP actions as a norm and a practice. It analyses how peacebuilding in EU missions is conceptualised, designed, governed and implemented. The book examines the extent to which EU missions and operations reflect a normative and practical commitment of the EU to peacebuilding – that is to say, the extent to which CSDP instruments have been shaped by international peacebuilding norms and EU foreign policy. Drawing on empirical insights from decision- and policymaking processes in Brussels as well as from missions in Mali and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book offers critical perspectives on the EU’s role as an international peacebuilding actor. This book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU policy, peace and conflict studies, security studies and international relations.




The EU, the UN and Collective Security


Book Description

This book examines the effectiveness of multilateralism in ensuring collective security and, in particular, the EU's role in this process. In 1992, shortly after the end of the Cold War, a Security Council Summit in New York reaffirmed the salience of the system of collective security and stated the determination of the Heads of State to maintain it as the prime international instrument for preserving peace. Twenty years later, however, the record of collective security as well as of multilateralism has not been very encouraging. The system of collective security, as enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter, failed repeatedly to accomplish its mandate in the 1990s and has led to controversial debates in the United States and Europe that reached a climax during the Iraq crisis in 2002/03. The volume draws upon both theoretical and empirical research to answer the following core questions: What are the reasons that have made multilateralism either effective or ineffective in the field of peacekeeping, peace preservation and peacebuilding? How can multilateralism be made more effective? How can attempts made by Europe to render UN multilateralism in the security area more efficient be assessed? This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, EU policy, the UN, security studies and IR in general.




Managing Crises, Making Peace


Book Description

In the face of emerging new threats, the EU's capacity to build a distinctive role in crisis management remains problematic. Analysing EU policies and actions, this collection sheds light on the EU's role in managing crises and peacekeeping, exploring avenues for a strategic EU vision for security and defense.




EU Peacebuilding in Kosovo and Afghanistan


Book Description

In EU Peacebuilding in Kosovo and Afghanistan: Legality and Accountability Martina Spernbauer offers a comprehensive account of the EU's peacebuilding toolbox in light of the Union's constitutional architecture under the Treaty of Lisbon. A detailed analysis of EU peacebuilding in Kosovo and Afghanistan, with a focus on the security and justice sectors, demonstrates that the Union's continuous dichotomy between the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and other Union policies is difficult to maintain for this multi-faceted, comprehensive policy framework, which lies at the interface of security, justice and development. Within this analysis, the central questions of compliance of EU external action with international law and international human rights law in particular under CFSP, as well as accountability towards third countries and their nationals are addressed.




European Union Peacebuilding and Policing


Book Description

This new book provides an in-depth analysis of the projects of improvement carried out by the civilian peacebuilding missions in Bosnia and Macedonia, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault to make the case that the EU’s (self-) image as a model peacebuilder conceals another side of the European Security and Defence Policy. The authors explore the double-sided nature of peacebuilding missions, on the one hand, as a way to pacify, democratize, humanize and improve life in societies emerging from crisis or violence and, on the other hand, as a kind of political pastorate that limits the range of acceptable heterogeneity by refashioning, repositioning and reorganizing subjects in line with transcendentalized notions of good governance. The authors develop a limited reform agenda for how EU police missions can fold an agonistic generosity more deeply into their civilizing ethos in order to ensure they have a light expatriate footprint in their host countries. The prescriptive part of the book also discusses generic problems in the implementation of EU police reforms and suggests ways to overcome these challenges. This book will be of great interest to students of European politics, sociology, political science and theory.




Accountability in EU Security and Defence


Book Description

This monograph aims to take an interdisciplinary approach to the questions of who is accountable for the European Union's extraterritorial peacebuilding activities and to whom, combining tools of legal scholarship with insights from political science research.




The EU and Crisis Response


Book Description

A state-of-the-art consideration of the European Union's crisis response mechanisms based on comparative fieldwork in a number of cases.




The European Union as International Mediator


Book Description

This book explores the EU’s effectiveness as an international mediator and provides a comparative analysis of EU mediation through three case studies: the conflict over Montenegro’s independence, the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, and the Geneva International Discussions on South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The book starts from the observation that the EU has emerged as an important international provider of mediation in various conflicts around the world. Against this background, the author develops an analytical framework to investigate EU mediation effectiveness that is then applied to the three cases. The main finding of the book is that EU mediation has a stabilising effect on conflict dynamics, making renewed escalation less likely and contributing to the settlement of conflict issues. At the same time, the EU’s effectiveness depends primarily on its ability to influence the conflict parties’ willingness to compromise through conditionality and diplomatic pressure.




Limits to the European Union’s Normative Power in a Post-conflict Society


Book Description

By shedding light on EULEX - the EU mission to Kosovo – this open access book investigates the EU’s peacebuilding activities in that country, in the light of the normative power theory in the post-conflict setting and peacebuilding theory. Ten years after the massive engagement of the EU in the country torn by war, the authors critically assess the effects of the EU projecting its normative power – the enforcement of its standards, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – through the EULEX mission, taking into consideration also the local aspects, so far neglected in this field of research. Inspecting thoroughly the EULEX activities in the police, customs and judiciary sector, the authors reveal that the mission can contribute to a positive change, but only in those cases which do not request a heavy political involvement and broad leverage by other international players (for example in improving standards of work in police and customs). When it comes to the most serious cases of organized crime, corruption and war crimes, EULEX, however, has not been able to address them effectively due to several internal mission’s deficiencies and external factors; the perceived ineffectiveness of EULEX among the local population led to the lowering of trust not only in this CSDP mission, but also in the EU in general. This open access book offers a comprehensive assessment of the EULEX mission, based on two Horizon2020 research projects: IECEU - Improving the Effectiveness of Capabilities in EU Conflict Prevention, and KOSNORTH – The European Union and its Normative Power in a Post-conflict Society: A Case Study of Northern Kosovo (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship). As such it is an invaluable resource for scholars, students and policymakers interested in security questions in South Eastern Europe and EU external action.