Make do, or mend? EU security provision in complex conflicts: the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

This article assesses whether the EU contributes to long-term positive change in societies emerging from violent conflict, helping them 'mend' or whether it simply encourages societies to 'make do' with the status quo. To do so, the article focuses on two of the principles found in the Treaty, peace and justice for human rights violations. It examines how the EU translates the principles of peace and justice into policy and puts them into practice by analyzing EU engagement in peace mediation, transitional justice, and security sector reform in general and through in-depth examination of EU engagement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It questions the prevailing discourse that greater inter-institutional coherence would improve EU security provision and considers whether and how the EU prioritizes between peace and justice. The article finds that principles may be translated into policy and put into practice, and practice is often ahead of policy. But this is uneven within as well as across the institutions. Greater coherence between principle, policy, and practice, rather than between institutions, would improve EU security provision and enable prioritization. If the EU settles for making do, it undermines its considerable potential to contribute to long-term solutions to complex conflicts.

The Strategic Security Engagement between the African Union and the European Union in Conflict Management in Africa: The Challenges

“…Toni 2013; Davis, 2015;Schmidt, 2016), these strategic engagements and cooperation between the AU and the EU will further enhance and protect their mutual strategic interests. This narrative shows the expediency and the need for the two multilateral actors to unite and cooperate to enhance their alliance and collectively protect their interests against certain fundamental negative forces of change may that threaten their development and growth.…”

Introduction

“…The chapter by Osland and Peter examines EU activities in the Western Balkans over a two-decade period and thus is able to show the evolution of EU strategy over time. It shows, with particular reference to the EU's rule-of-law support programme in Kosovo (EULEX), how the often benign intentions of the EU to move towards a conflict transformation agenda were thwarted by short-termism (see also Davis, 2015, on short-termism in a different context). The result was that policies and actions usually fell within the conflict management paradigm.…”

EU Mediation as an Assemblage of Practices: Introducing a New Approach to the Study of EU Conflict Resolution

“…It is striking to observe that the nascent literature on EU mediation conceptualizes mediation by building on scholars such as Jakob Bercovitch or Saadia Touval and William Zartman at the expense of a close examination of the EU Concept (see, for example, Davis, 2014;Bergmann and Niemann, 2015). Also the more critical approach of Jelena Cupac and Maja Ruzic is not different in this regard (Cupac and Ruzic, 2013).…”

“…Research into these developments is unfolding but has not fully accounted for the changes yet because it is confined to a specific set of concepts of mediation and EU external action (Davis, 2014;Bergmann and Niemann, 2015). This article argues that in order to understand the processes underway in the field of EU mediation, it is necessary to engage in a micro-sociological assessment, and ties in with Rebecca Adler-Nissen's argument in favour of a practice turn in EU studies (Adler-Nissen, 2016).…”