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- Author: Oliver P. Richmond x
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This volume seeks to bring together insights which look at the intersection of governance, culture and conflict resolution in India and the EU, two very different but connected epistemic, cultural and institutional settings, which have been divided by distance, colonialism, and culture, and yet recently brought closer together by ideas and practices of what is known as liberal peace, neoliberal state, and development projects. The differences are obvious in terms of geography, culture, the nature and shape of institutions, and historical forces: and yet the commonalities between the two are surprising. The depth of cultural variation and scale as well as very significant institutional differences are obvious. What emerges from this research project, and what is more unexpected is similarity in their critiques of neoliberalism, of governance and its conceptual relationship with governmentality, their focus on decentralised institutions, and local forms of peace agency, the escalatory tendencies of borders, and the urgency of development and self-determination pressures.
The volume based on strong case studies and rigorous analysis examines these issues in the context of the practices of conflict resolution in India and Europe.
This is a start-of-the-art consideration of the European Union’s crisis response mechanisms. It brings together scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to examine how and why the EU responds to crises on its borders and further afield. The work is based on extensive fieldwork in among another places, Afghanistan, Libya, Mali and Iraq.
The book considers the construction of crises and how some issues are deemed crises and others not. A major finding from this comparative study is that EU crisis response interventions have been placing increasing emphasis on security and stabilisation and less emphasis on human rights and democratisation. This changes – quite fundamentally – the EU’s stance as an international actor and leads to questions about the nature of the EU and how it perceives itself and is perceived by others.
The volume is able to bring together scholars from EU Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies. The result showcases concept and theory-building alongside case study research.
Chapter 1 discusses the relationship between governance and conflict resolution in India and the EU. It finds a lot of similarities between the two entities especially in terms of their concern for democratic credentials and institutional design, increasingly based on neo-liberal principles. Both India and the EU give primacy to statebuilding in their conflict resolution strategies and emphasise the importance of development and bureaucracy in the process. The authors find that one of the main differences between the two entities is in the security measures they undertake. While the EU has a more relaxed approach to security policy, India puts emphasis on the use of hard security measures, seeing itself as a unitary sovereign actor rather than a quasi-federal entity (as with the EU). This is also one of the most common critiques of India's efforts in producing conflict resolution, along with the inefficiency of its governance and the corruption that surrounds it. The EU can be partly criticised for its selective approach to conditionalities in accession/association process which in some cases even resembles the colonial past of some of the most prominent members of the EU. The authors conclude that the two entities achieve a certain level of governmentality while their success in producing conflict resolution in a purer form of reconciliation and social justice is relatively limited.
This chapter sets out a key conceptual notion that underpins the book. It expands the well-known conflict response framework of conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict transformation to encompass crisis response by the EU. Thus it examines how a framework of crisis management, crisis resolution and crisis transformation may apply to the EU and expands the framework even further by considering the notion of critical conflict transformation. In keeping with other chapters in the book, it argues that elements of EU crisis response have shown signs of being progressive and emancipatory and conforming to crisis transformation or critical crisis transformation. Yet, and again as seen in later chapters, the trend has been away from emancipatory-style crisis response towards responses that emphasise security and stabilisation.
The Introduction sets out the structure and essential purpose of the book, and explains EUNPACK – the comparative study on which the book is based. It asks what EU crisis management seeks to address; introduces the innovative typology for crisis response that lies at the heart of the book; and highlights how much of the book is based on fieldwork, while being careful to note how difficult it is for outside researchers to authentically reflect the voices of local populations. The key findings of the book are presented, including the trend identified in a number of later chapters towards security-led approaches in the EU’s crisis response activities in its neighbourhood and further afield. The conclusion offers further thoughts on how EU crisis response has evolved and on its future role.