This book provides a comprehensive assessment of how the EU has performed in facilitating mediation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding across the globe.

This book examines how the different normative foundations of conflict resolution held by various global actors, their understandings of justice, and the differences between types of conflict influence the varying means by which conflicts can be prevented, managed, and ultimately resolved. By combining insights from political theory, conflict studies, and European Union (EU) foreign policy studies, the book identifies the EU as the key case of a conflict manager that is both a product and a defender of a global liberal order. It focuses on three aspects of conflict resolution that pose their own sets of both normative and empirical dilemmas: resolving border disputes; strengthening the resilience of weak or divided states and societies after regime change, and intervention in humanitarian crises. Furthermore, it offers a comparative analysis between a potentially distinctive European approach and that of other global actors and reflects critically on situations where policy practice may not always reflect a concern for justice, asking what countervailing forces prevail and why. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in European and EU Studies, Area studies, Conflict Resolution, War Studies, EU Foreign Policy Political Theory, International relations as well as policymakers.

This book provides the first comprehensive review of the European Union’s role in military conflict management beyond its borders and makes an important contribution to debates on the EU’s role in global security governance. The EU has launched five military operations within the framework of its Common Security and Defence Policy with the explicit purpose to help manage violent conflicts beyond its borders. This book develops a definition and a set of criteria for success in military conflict management and applies this new analytical framework in a comparative case study of the five EU military operations undertaken in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and the Central African Republic. Having evaluated their success the book goes on to explore the conditions under which military conflict management operations conducted by international organizations are successful and explores the implications of its findings for the future theory and practice of military conflict management. The European Union and Military Conflict Management will be of interest to students and scholars of security studies, conflict studies, European Union politics and foreign policy and global security governance.

Conflict prevention and crisis management has become a key activity for the EU since the creation of the Common Security and Defence Policy in 1999. The rapid growth of this policy area, as well as the number of missions deployed beyond the EU’s border raise important questions about the nature of the EU’s international role and its contribution to international security. The Contributions to EU Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management analyze European conflict prevention and crisis management in terms of the EU’s evolving global role, its institutions and its policies. The volume analyzes the EU’s position in relation to the US, the UN and other regional security organizations, and applies three different institutionalist perspectives – historical, rational choice and sociological institutionalism - to explain the increasing institutionalization of EU crisis management. It also critically analyzes the application of EU policies in West Africa, Afghanistan and the Caucasus. Providing a comprehensive analysis of EU crisis management, the volume explores what role EU conflict prevention and crisis management plays in a European and a global context. Offering a comprehensive and original contribution to the literature on EU foreign and security policy, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, international relations and security studies.

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.

Conflict prevention and crisis management has become a key activity for the EU since the creation of the Common Security and Defence Policy in 1999. The rapid growth of this policy area, as well as the number of missions deployed beyond the EU’s border raise important questions about the nature of the EU’s international role and its contribution to international security. The Contributions to EU Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management analyze European conflict prevention and crisis management in terms of the EU’s evolving global role, its institutions and its policies. The volume analyzes the EU’s position in relation to the US, the UN and other regional security organizations, and applies three different institutionalist perspectives – historical, rational choice and sociological institutionalism - to explain the increasing institutionalization of EU crisis management. It also critically analyzes the application of EU policies in West Africa, Afghanistan and the Caucasus. Providing a comprehensive analysis of EU crisis management, the volume explores what role EU conflict prevention and crisis management plays in a European and a global context. Offering a comprehensive and original contribution to the literature on EU foreign and security policy, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, international relations and security studies.

This book provides the first comprehensive review of the European Union’s role in military conflict management beyond its borders and makes an important contribution to debates on the EU’s role in global security governance. The EU has launched five military operations within the framework of its Common Security and Defence Policy with the explicit purpose to help manage violent conflicts beyond its borders. This book develops a definition and a set of criteria for success in military conflict management and applies this new analytical framework in a comparative case study of the five EU military operations undertaken in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and the Central African Republic. Having evaluated their success the book goes on to explore the conditions under which military conflict management operations conducted by international organizations are successful and explores the implications of its findings for the future theory and practice of military conflict management. The European Union and Military Conflict Management will be of interest to students and scholars of security studies, conflict studies, European Union politics and foreign policy and global security governance.