The EU’s self promotion as a ‘conflict manager’ is embedded in a discourse about its ‘shared values’ and their foundation in a connection between security, development and democracy. This book provides a collection of essays based on the latest cutting edge research into the EU’s active engagement in conflict management. It maps the evolution of EU policy and strategic thinking about its role, and the development of its institutional capacity to manage conflicts.
Case studies of EU conflict management within the Union, in its neighbourhood and further afield, explore the consistency, coherence, and politicization of EU strategy at the implementation stage. The essays examine the extent to which the EU can exert influence on conflict dynamics and outcomes. Such influence depends on a number of changing factors: how the EU conceptualizes conflict and policy solutions; the balance of interests within the EU on the issue (divided or concerted) and the degree of politicization in the EU's role; the scope for an external EU role; and the value attached by the conflict parties to EU engagement – a value that is almost wholly bound to their interest in a membership perspective (or other strong relationship to the EU) rather than to ‘shared values’ as an end in themselves.
This book was based on a special issue of Ethnopolitics.
1. Introduction: The Making of EU Conflict Management Strategy—Development through Security? James Hughes 2. Paying for Peace: Comparing the EU’s Role in the Conflicts in Northern Ireland and Kosovo James Hughes 3. The EU’s Role in the Cyprus Conflict: System Failure or Structural Metamorphosis? Christalla Yakinthou 4. The Stabilization and Association Process in the Western Balkans: An Effective Instrument of Post-conflict Management? Claire Gordon 5. The Role of the EU in the Reform of Dayton in Bosnia-Herzegovina Sofia Sebastian 6. Was the EU’s Role in Conflict Management in Macedonia a Success? Zoran Ilievski and Dane Taleski 7. The European Neighbourhood Policy and Conflict Management: A Comparison of Moldova and the Caucasus Gwendolyn Sasse 8. Firm in Rhetoric, Compromising in Reality: The EU in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict Nathalie Tocci 9. EU Conflict Management in Africa: The Limits of an International Actor Catherine Gegout
Biography
James Hughes is Professor of comparative politics at the London School of Economics. He is also editor of Development and Transition, the newsletter of the United Nations Development Programme.
