Changing approaches to security / Working Paper
European conflict resolution policies: truncated peace-building
01/03/2010 By Fernanda Faria, Richard Youngs
Many documents have highlighted the importance of the ‘security, governance and development’ trinity to Europe’s attempts to temper conflict and state fragility. The European Security Strategy and its 2008 update both identify these linkages as pivotal to more effective EU conflict resolution.
Enough time has now passed for a stock-take and it is expected that considerable progress will have been made. Our analysis suggests, however, that European policies in situations of conflict or fragility remain ineffectual, often unduly narrow in scope and at odds with the EU’s declared holism.
Most criticism has focused on the problematic civil-military link in crisis management, yet it is in the broader politics of peacebuilding that European policies are most seriously deficient.
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Keywords
EU European Union Peacebuilding SecurityBio author: Fernanda Faria
Fernanda's work is essentially focused on issues related to peacebuilding and statebuilding policies in fragile states, including security and development policy responses, particularly in EU-Africa relations. She has conducted field work and policy analysis on these themes and on EU crisis management, particularly in Central African states.
Bio author: Richard Youngs
Democracy promotion. EU foreign policy.
