Limits to the European Union’s Normative Power in a Post-conflict Society: EULEX and Peacebuilding in Kosovo

Front matter

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN POPULATION STUDIES

D De ; ve v MOK / UDAI

Limits to the European Union's Normative Power ina Post-contflict Society g CULEX and Peacebuilding in KOSOVO

Contents

T Introduction’. isa oes.46 e pan ane Ee Ais eee eds 1 LA The Puzzles o 28 0 sp Gags Gen Ge Re A ee ae SS 1 Referentes ntucreiet gain paths Pee Meek Sl tela aa aal a ee tes 6 2 Assessing Normative Power in Peacebuilding: A Theoretical Framework 5. 6ycis5 n Sie We ie Bele le sn eR eee Aes RA 9 2.2.4 Future Challenges to EU Conflict Prevention 2.3 The EU’s Struggle for Normative Power in Post-Conflict SOCICHES 2. shit ae heh ORAS, Hh a de ee 22 2.3.3 Analysing Normative Power in Peacebuilding: References: aa 4 i uea dont Taso ey ween Ae ee Dea end 28 3.1.1 “The Hour of Europe in the 1990s”: 3.1.2 Seeking a Civilian Power Identity:

x Contents

3.2.2 The SFRY’s Dissolution, the War in Kosovo

Chapter 1 A Introduction Cheek tor 1.1 The Puzzle

Kosovo is one of the youngest countries in the world. In the last few decades, its history has been turbulent, stained with blood. When the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) was established back in 2008 as another optimistic effort of the international community to build sustainable peace, Kosovo Albanians, the biggest ethnic group in the country, held high expectations. This is no surprise: Kosovo Albanians have endured difficult periods of violence, particularly during the war of 1998—1999, and despite being citizens of “an independent state” face the challenge of living in one of Europe’s poorest countries, dogged by corruption and lawlessness. Although the second biggest ethnic group in Kosovo, the Serbs, does not agree with the Kosovo Albanians on Kosovo’s future political status and oppose both its statehood of and international recognition, there is widespread agreement among them: the rule of law in this corner of South East Europe urgently needs to improve.

Professionalising the Kosovar police, customs and judiciary—-EULEX’s three main working areas—remains an urgent task among a handful of other challenges facing this post-conflict society (economic reconstruction and tackling poverty, for example). The early announcements made by EULEX staff were ambitious: they promised to not only professionalise the key services for democratic society to function properly, but also committed themselves to go after the “big fish” (Qosaj-Mustafa 2010, 5). Unsurprisingly, these promises of bringing the perpetrators to justice made the local population believe sustainable peace and a well-functioning democracy were within reach. Moreover, most Kosovo Albanian political parties supported the deployment of EULEX—with one exception, Vetëvendosje! (Movement for Self-Determination), a prominent political party that has been fiercely opposed to EULEX from the very start.

© The Author(s) 2018 1 R. Zupančič and N. Pejič, Limits to the European Union’s Normative

Power in a Post-conflict Society, SpringerBriefs in Population Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77824-2_1

2 1 Introduction

Despite the passing of months and years, only a handful of people have been processed by the courts. Unsurprisingly, the initial euphoria seen in significant parts of Kosovo Albanian society has dwindled. Further, the corruption scandals affecting EULEX itself that resonated widely in post-conflict Kosovo, leading to vigorous reactions of the locals who once believed EULEX could also heal society from other problems—not just those covered by its mandate. More fuel was added to the fire by certain prominent political figures whose political programme included harsh and constant criticism of the international community, especially EULEX.

The Kosovo Albanians’ protests against EULEX often turned violent (Krasniqi 2009). One of the biggest protests took place in 2009 when rioters destroyed 28 EULEX vehicles; three police officers and one rioter were wounded. Apart from the protests, the supporters of Vetevendosje expressed their outrage with EULEX in different ways on an everyday basis, most notably by writing graffiti describing EULEX as an occupier that should leave the country immediately (McKinna 2013). Yet the Kosovo Serbs were almost equally opposed to the EU’s most ambitious civilian mission so far, designed to be a flagship of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), having argued that the establishment of EULEX de iure meant recognition of Kosovo’s statehood (Radio Slobodna Evropa 2008).

In a setting where the objectives of EULEX’s mandate were very ambitious yet where the mission’s approval among the local population has reached its lowest levels in the last couple of years, it is worth investigating why and how this all came about. The lack of an exit strategy and the erosion of its legitimacy are the two main criticisms levelled at the mission (Qehaja and Prezelj 2017, 412—416). It is thus intriguing to explore why the EU—despite EULEX’s well-documented disapproval among most residents of Kosovo (both Albanians and Serbs) and the fact this civilian mission is costly yet clearly not delivering on its promises—insists on continuing this rule-of-law mission in this part of Europe.

Conversely, why is the idea of exporting the EU’s standards and norms to a third country, which technically speaking is EULEX’s overarching aim, so bitterly opposed on the ground? While it is true that Kosovo might be “the laboratory of the international community to test some ideas” (Zupančič 2015), due to its geographical proximity probably it is also the most appropriate space to fulfil the EU’s aspirations to finally become recognised as ‘a force for good’ in international relations—Normative Power Europe (Manners 2002). In line with its attempt to become a global security actor, the EU’s normative aspirations extend far beyond Kosovo. Yet, compared to certain other conflict or post-conflict societies where the EU has sought to establish norms (e.g. Southern Sudan, Mali, Chad etc.), Kosovo might—at least prima facie—be a relatively easy peacebuilding task. However, as this monograph demonstrates, this has not been the case.

1.2 The Argument in Brief 3

1.2 The Argument in Brief

The EU’s peacebuilding role in Kosovo, and the performance of EULEX in particular, have attracted considerable academic criticism in the last few years (Papadimitriou et al. 2007; Shepherd 2009; Kammel 2011; Radin 2014; Malešič and Juvan 2015; Grilj and Zupančič 2016; Qehaja and Prezelj 2017). EULEX has also not been spared of salient criticisms from ‘within’, when the EU itself launched several investigations to help discover EULEX’s malfunctioning as an institution and the misbehaviour of its staff. One case in point is the Jacque Report published in April 2015 in response to accusations of corruption in the judicial sector made by a staff member of EULEX (Jacque 2015). The performance of EULEX and the misconduct occurring under its flag is also strongly rebuked by former staff member Andrea Capussela (2015) who argues in his book that the mission has been so unsuccessful in meeting its objectives that it is better to immediately close it down and withdraw it from Kosovo. It is no surprise that the negative sentiment surrounding EULEX—often rightful, albeit not always—also echoes widely in Kosovar media outlets on an almost daily basis (Kossev 2014; Koha.net 2017).

It is hard to dispute the fact that this, the most ambitious mission ever launched within the CSDP framework, has several problems and as such has not fulfilled the expectations of Kosovo residents themselves (Albanians, Serbs and other ethnic minorities) or the EU politicians and officials overseeing this civilian mission. This book, however, does not attempt to challenge the findings and valid allegations thoroughly researched and documented in the previously mentioned publications. But what this book does challenge is the general belief that EULEX, as part of the EU’s peacebuilding project, has done nothing at all and has even played quite a positive role in building sustainable peace in Kosovo.

Thus, the central argument of this book is that certain aspects of EULEX’s performance in the 10 years of its operation (2008-2017) have helped improve certain practices and further that the mission staff have been learning from their initial mistakes. In particular, this monograph seeks to show the EU is able to project its normative power through its peacebuilding efforts, especially in fields that are politically unproblematic and hence more technical in nature or—to use military terms—take place on the tactical level (e.g. raising standards of police conduct; improving the customs control; streamlining court procedures).

Yet one must also take into account that the mission has been operating in a very challenging environment since its inception, in both a local and international perspective. One example is the question of the non-recognition of Kosovo by EU member states, which further complicates the EU’s effectiveness. It is not even expected that all EU countries will recognise Kosovo’s statehood in the near future. If the other structural causes stemming from the complexity of the international community, each significantly impacting the peacebuilding project’s success in Kosovo, are added to this conundrum (e.g. the role of the United States of America (USA) in Kosovo and the wider region of South East Europe; the Serbia-Russian Federation nexus and the implications for Kosovo), it would be quite naive to

4 1 Introduction expect that a single international actor could bring several positive changes to this post-conflict society.

By arguing along these lines and given all the constraints the EU as an institution and EULEX as a ‘spin-off’ are facing, this book seeks to answer the following general research objective: what kind of power is the EU supposed to be (and “pretends to be’) in its peacebuilding endeavours in a post-conflict society in its immediate neighbourhood—the ‘new-born’ country of Kosovo.

The general research objective is further broken down into several specific research questions. First, what are the effects of the EU’s attempt to normatively influence the EULEX Kosovo mission? Second, should the EU aspire to be a normative, civilian, transformative, economic or even military power—or perhaps none of these—even though the EU invests “more in development cooperation than the rest of the world combined” (Mogherini 2016, 3)? Third, is it reasonable for the EU to continue to declaratively pursue normative goals on a global scale, attempting “to widen the reach of international norms, regimes and institutions” (European Union 2016, 41), when it even struggles to build sustainable peace in Kosovo, whose around 1.8 million inhabitants represent not even 0.4% of the entire EU population? Finally, what is the direct impact of EULEX’s work in its main fields of engagement: the police, customs and the judiciary?

1.3 Methodological Framework

The methodological framework of this monograph is an excerpt of a wider conceptual framework established within the extensive Horizon 2020 project IECEU (Improving Capabilities in EU Conflict Prevention).' It draws from an analysis of 66 interviews conducted during field trips to Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016 within IECEU Working Package 2 (The Balkans). While this monograph focuses on the EU’s mission in Kosovo, the data acquired in Bosnia and Herzegovina further shed light on the labyrinths of the CSDP in South East Europe.

The researchers from the University of Ljubljana, the Centre for European Perspective and the Finnish Defence Forces International Centre (FINCENT) interviewed various people from Kosovo (local staff working for EULEX, nongovernmental organisations’ (NGOs’) representatives in Kosovo, and the international staff of EULEX in particular).* Some other experts were also interviewed in

'TECEU 2016. Deliverable 1.4: IECEU Conceptual Framework. Available at: http://www.ieceu-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/1 1/IECEU_Conceptual_Framework_PU.pdf (27 September 2017).

°The principal investigator leading the research in South East Europe was Dr Rok Zupančič, University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Social Sciences, Defence Research Centre), now working at the University of Graz (Centre for Southeast European studies). The researchers Ivana Boštjančič Pulko and Nina Cepon from the Centre for European Perspective and Johanna Suhonnen from FINCENT participated in the interviewing in Kosovo.

1.3 Methodological Framework 5 order to ensure third-party feedback pertaining to EULEX’s performance (European External Action Service (EEAS) staff; the representatives of certain armed forces’ contingents deployed in the framework of multinational stabilisation forces) was obtained. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for the interviews, providing a suitable means to ensure greater richness and variety in answers, including unexpected ones. The research questions stem from an extensive analysis of academic and expert literature on EULEX and Kosovo in general, which was conducted prior to commencing the field work.

The preliminary findings from the mentioned approach were then critically evaluated at a roundtable discussion. Several experts working in South East Europe or in EU structures were invited to the roundtable in Slovenia in order to assess the findings of the IECEU researchers made during their field work in early 2016. In addition, the representatives of security/enforcement institutions (the Slovenian Armed Forces and the Slovenian Police), the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, think tanks and academia participated, with the intention to evaluate the IECEU researchers’ findings from as many perspectives as possible. The roundtable discussion had 24 participants and was organised according to the Chatham House rules.* The feedback received served as a means for validating and improving the findings of the field work.

1.4 Outline of the Monograph

Chapter 2 presents the methodological framework for studying the EU normative power in post-conflict societies through the lens of peacebuilding. To establish such a framework, it is necessary to understand the EU’s aspiration to become a provider of global security since the first modest attempts of the then European Communities (EC) to contribute to international peace; the first section of Chap. 2 analyses this. The second section explores normative power as a theoretical concept and its practical ‘embodiment’ in the form of EU peacebuilding in post-conflict societies and explains the book’s theoretical underpinnings.

Chapter 3 focuses on the EU’s involvement as a security actor in South East Europe. It describes the process of the EU gradually recognising the importance of stability in its immediate neighbourhood—a region that was missing an adequate and decisive response from the EU during the 1990s when wars devastated large parts of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (the SFRY, also Yugoslavia)—for EU member states, South East Europe and, finally, also for Kosovo. The second part explores Kosovo’s emergence as ‘a security problem’ from early on in the conflict in Kosovo between the Serbs and Albanians until more recent times, when the (so-called) international community decided to intervene by

3The list of participants at the roundtable is available in Deliverable D2.4 “Round table— Discussion Report” at http://www.ieceu-project.com/?page_id=197 (9 November 2017).

6 1 Introduction launching a mission to help build sustainable peace—the very endeavour the EU is today leading.

Chapter 4 first illustrates Kosovo’s ‘appropriateness’ for the EU’s peacebuilding efforts, focusing on events that led to the establishment of EULEX. The chapter continues by explaining EULEX’s deployment and the scope of its mandate. This is followed by the book’s biggest contribution, namely its exploration of best practices, lessons identified and drawbacks in the three fields of EULEX’s mandate (police, customs and the judiciary). The analysis is conducted in line with the previously established framework at the nexus of the academic literature on peacebuilding and normative power theory and intertwines three perspectives: the perspective of EU officials in Brussels, that of EULEX staff, and also the locals’ perspective on EULEX.

Chapter 5 concludes the monograph. It critically evaluates the research findings and seeks to provide a few theoretical contributions for peacebuilding theories and the theory of the EU as a normative power. It also suggests possible avenues for further research.

Capussela, A. L. (2015). State-building in Kosovo: democracy, corruption and the EU in the Balkans. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.

European Union (2016). A global strategy for the European Union’s foreign and security policy. Retrieved November 9, 2017, from https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/sites/globalstrategy/files/ regions/files/eugs_review_web_0.pdf.

Grilj, B., & Zupančič, R. (2016). Assessing the planning and the implementation of the EU Rule of Law Missions: case study of EULEX Kosovo. European Perspectives, 8(2), 63-86.

IECEU (2016). Deliverable 1.4: IECEU conceptual framework. Retrieved September 27, 2017, fromhttp://www.ieceu-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/IECEU_Conceptual_ Framework_PU.pdf.

Jacque, J.P. (2015). Review of the EULEX Kosovo mission’s implementation of the mandate with a particular focus on the handling of the recent allegations. Report to the attention of the High Representative/Vice President of the European Commission Ms Federica Mogherini. Retrieved January 8, 2017, from http://collections.internetmemory.org/haeu/content/20160313172652/ http:/eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/docs/150331_jacque-report_en.pdf.

Kammel, A. (2011). Putting ideas into action: EU civilian crisis management in the Western Balkans. Contemporary Security Policy, 32(3), 625-643.

Koha.net (2017). Berisha thoté se po hetohet ish-prokurorja e EULEX-it, Marie Bamieh. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from http://www.koha.net/arberi/463 17/berisha-thote-se-po-hetohet-ish-prokurorja-e-eulex-it-marie-bamieh/.

Malešič, M., & Juvan, J. (2015). Analiza operacij kriznega upravljanja EU. Teorija in Praksa, 52 (5), 844-864.

Manners, I. (2002). Normative Power Europe: A contradiction in terms? Journal of Common Market Studies, 2, 235-258.

McKinna, A. (2013). The Vetevendosje movement in Kosovo: An increasing focus on nationalism. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from http://www.balkanalysis.com/kosovo/2012/ 02/22/the-vetevendosje-movement-in-kosovo-an-increasing-focus-on-nationalism/.

Mogherini, F. (2016). Foreword to the global strategy for the European union’s foreign and security policy. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/sites/ globalstrategy/files/regions/files/eugs_review_web_0.pdf.

Papadimitriou, D., Petrov, P., & Greigevci, L. (2007). To build a state: Europeanization, the EU actorness and state-building in Kosovo. European Foreign Affairs Review, 12, 219-238. Qehaja, F., & Prezelj, I. (2017). Issues of local ownership in Kosovo’s security sector. Southeast

European and Black Sea Studies, 17(3), 403-419.

Qosaj-Mustafa, A. (2010). Strengthening rule of law in Kosovo: The fight against corruption and organized crime. Policy Paper 2010/8. KIPRED: Prishtina. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from _ http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/20 1202/20 120201 ATT36932/ 20120201 ATT36932EN. pdf.

Radin, A. (2014). Analysis of current events: “Towards the rule of law in Kosovo—EULEX should go”. Nationalities Papers, 42(2), 181-194.

Radio Slobodna Evropa (2008). Kosovski Srbi protiv EULEX-a. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/1293494. html.

Shepherd, A. J. K. (2009). A milestone in the history of the EU: Kosovo and the EU’s international role. International Affairs, 85(3), 513-530.

Zupančič, R. (2015). Kosovo: laboratorij preprečevanja oboroženih konfliktov, pokonfliktne obnove in izgradnje države. Brno: Vaclav Klemm in Plzen: Zapadočeska univerzita v Plzni.

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Chapter 2 A Assessing Normative Power Eg in Peacebuilding: A Theoretical Framework

2.1 The EU’s Path to Becoming a Peacebuilding Actor

The EC—the EU’s predecessor—was already evolving as a security actor during the Cold War, mainly with its structural policies aimed at cooperation with developing nations. These policies were introduced as an instrument of long-term peacebuilding in line with the ideological background that economically stable societies are less like to descend into armed conflict (van de Walle 2004). However, despite several attempts to develop supranational security policies—the European Defence Community (EDC) in the 1950s, the Fouchet Plan in 1960—the member states pursued security actions and arrangements separately, not together. Accordingly, security was kept off the common political agenda until the late 1960s when European political cooperation produced a few modest success stories (Gross and Juncos 2011).

Nevertheless, when the period of bipolar confrontation following the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR, Soviet Union) dissolution had come to an end, the EC/EU had to face a series of security challenges, with the main ones being in its immediate vicinity (e.g. wars in former SFRY; conflicts in the Middle East; instability in North Africa). The idea the EU could have a stake in building peace around the world emerged as a visible objective of the Union’s European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) (Stewart 2006, 12). Therefore, over the last 20 years the EU has transformed from being a product of peace only to a major international security actor that seeks to influence security contexts beyond its borders (Gross and Juncos 2011, 3).

This chapter has three parts. First, it explores the development of peacebuilding as a theoretical concept and considers the conceptualisation of peacebuilding as understood by the EU. Second, the chapter examines the elaboration and formation of the EU’s policies and approaches to peacebuilding, in particular which events and motivations impacted EU member states in the process of forming the CFSP and ESDP, or nowadays the CSDP. Finally, the chapter outlines the concept of

© The Author(s) 2018 9 R. Zupančič and N. Pejič, Limits to the European Union’s Normative

Power in a Post-conflict Society, SpringerBriefs in Population Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77824-2_2 normative power, which is a key theoretical foundation of the book. It does so by exploring the term ‘normative power Europe’ coined by Manners (2002) and delving further into this theoretical concept.

2.1.1 Conceptualising Peacebuilding

The nature of conflicts in the post-Cold War period is unlike the previous bipolar confrontation of the two major geopolitical blocs. The continued increasing trend of intra-state conflicts after the end of the Cold War and, importantly, the recognition that even intra-state conflicts are to be understood as threats to international peace and security led to international actors’ greater ambitions to intervene and prevent violence, therefore accelerating interest in conflict prevention techniques (Stewart 2006, 27-28). In addition, the outcomes of conflicts and the expanded ‘scope of peace’ in conflict-affected societies attracted ever more attention of actors in the international arena. Other aspects of security (economic, societal, psychological, political, ecological etc.) received more attention from both scholars and policymakers (Buzan 1991; Grizold 1998).

The central idea behind such perceptions is that “while conflict is normal, violent conflict within and between societies arises from and is sustained by unfortunate attitudes and defective social arrangements” (Morgan 2006). The idea underlying those attitudes and arrangements is not necessarily to be taken as a given, but can be mitigated and corrected. The pioneer of the term “peacebuilding” was Johan Galtung (1976, 297). He similarly argued this can be achieved if peacebuilding actors find structures “that remove causes of wars and offer alternatives to war in situations where wars might occur”. Brown (1996) further developed the argument about the underlying causes (structural, political, economic/social and cultural/perceptual) and catalytic factors or proximate causes of conflict (internal and external mass-level factors and external and internal elite-level factors)—addressing them should be the goal of peacebuilding.

The question of when a peacebuilding intervention—comprising the application of several instruments—should begin is vital for scholars in the field. Although usually connected with a post-conflict setting and hence used in the aftermath of a conflict, former United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Boutros Boutros-Ghali defined the UN’s peacebuilding activities as preventive and post-conflict in a way that similar or even the same peacebuilding strategies can be applied in different stages of a conflict. In other words, peacebuilding was no longer limited to post-conflict settings but was newly conceptualised to mean a set of similar or the same institutional, economic and social activities introduced to help stabilise a given society (Gross and Juncos 2011).

Peacebuilding is therefore essentially long-term conflict prevention and entails the activities of structural conflict prevention in a conflict-prone setting, pre- or post-conflict. Thus, while the different phases of the conflict circle might require different mechanisms and approaches, they cannot be kept separate as a conflict can

2.1 The EU’s Path to Becoming a Peacebuilding Actor 11 move back and forth between stages of the conflict cycle (Duke and Courtier 2009, 4). In other words, a conflict can again escalate and turn violent even though at first sight it seemed the conflict was phasing out.

Over time, different visions, notions and conceptualisations of peacebuilding have evolved. Call (2015, 2-3) notes that initially attention was dedicated to the international monitoring of peace agreements and capacities for their effective implementation. Later on, the focus expanded to reform, monitoring and advising with regard to “political, human rights, electoral, disarmament and demobilisation, humanitarian assistance and policing tasks” (ibid.). Based on analyses of case studies and cross-country comparisons, researchers have tried to identify what exactly is in the basket of activities international actors should be using to be successful peacebuilding actors in a post-conflict society. All this led to the development of theories on peacebuilding (Lambourne and Herro 2008).

Stedman and Rothchild (1996) identify four conditions (“sorts of security”) upon which successful peacebuilding relies: military, political, cultural and economic security. Schwarz (2005) argues that peacebuilding actors should address security, welfare and representation in a post-conflict society. Samuels (2006) focuses on constitution-building as a precondition for transforming governance, which should be the basis for peacebuilding. Paris (2004) outlines the failures of liberal peacebuilding through the democratisation and marketisation processes. Call (2015, 3) suggests that peacebuilding actors should move away from “large international-footprint peacebuilding” since some of these early notions of the concept proved to be “short-sighted, overly optimistic, insufficiently nuanced and unrepresentative of global perspectives”. Reychler (2004) connects sustainable peace with the notion of peacebuilding and refers to the absence of physical violence, elimination of discrimination, high levels of legitimacy and the ability to constructively transform a conflict.

Some peacebuilding failures in the 1990s were followed by criticism of the liberal design of peacebuilding; the so-called top-down approach in peacebuilding that chiefly emerged early on in the theory’s development could no longer satisfactorily explain the complexity of the current developments in post-conflict areas (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015; Qehaja 2017). Critics argued that research attention should be refocused to move away from big and influential international actors to, for example, ‘ordinary people’. Authors like Pickering (2007); Mac Ginty (2010) and Paffenholz (2010) wanted to know how these ‘ordinary people’ build the micro-foundations of peace and to examine their role as peacebuilding actors in these processes.

The discussion within this approach has two central dimensions of the ‘local turn in peacebuilding’. The first refers to the local in peacebuilding as a way of enhancing effectiveness. It emphasises local ownership and local capacity-building, as well as local governance models as pillars of peacebuilding (Menkhaus 2006; Bland 2007; Klem and Frerks 2008; Hayman 2010; Siegle and O’Mahony 2010; Björkdahl and Gusic 2013). The second dimension orients to the local as a means of emancipating the ‘voices from below’ and argues for the inclusion of local agency in peacebuilding analyses (Lundy and McGovern 2008; Autesserre 2010; Paffenholz 2010; Mac Ginty 2010; Richmond 2013; Qehaja 2017).

Some ideas have proven valuable in the long term. This led several international actors to ensure their institutional development regarding peacebuilding also incorporated these ideas by encompassing ‘traditional knowledge’, built on the experiences of international organisations in the field, states’ interests, bureaucratic tendencies, and resource limitations (Call 2015, 3). These ‘good practices’ are multi-faceted and include a commitment to establishing military, legal, political, economic, social, cultural and psychosocial conditions in a post-conflict society able to promote a culture of peace. They seem to be transformative in terms of changing the relations into sustainable partnerships. Thus, some authors (Lederach 2000; Pugh 2000; Stover and Weinstein 2004; Barnes 2006) contend that such actions should be contextual, meaning they take particular cultural and conflict contexts into account and that local civil society’s participation and representation in the peacebuilding processes is vital. Hence, in theory the current prevailing view is there is a need for ‘a transdisciplinary mind-set’ that encompasses lessons and insights from many perspectives (multidimensionality and inter-disciplinarity) and creates a more contextual, inclusive and holistic peacebuilding theory, with practical applicability (Lambourne and Herro 2008).

However, as Barnett et al. (2007, 53) point out, the problem of the concept’s multidimensionality is that while all peacebuilding actors might support the idea of building peace, “they will operate with considerable differences of interpretation regarding the meaning and practice of peacebuilding”, since they will all adopt a meaning, activities and policies of peacebuilding that is consistent with their interests, worldviews and mandates. This may suggest that all international peacebuilding cooperation is inherently political and that different peacebuilding actors will act according to various strategies for achieving durable peace in a given post-conflict society that are not necessarily solely based on ‘best practices’ arising from experience. This indicates peacebuilding could ultimately be a political accomplishment that “might be settled by bureaucratic and political power” (Barnett et al. 2007, 54). Moreover, the lack of a clear definition of the concept or accompanying strategy could produce an outcome which “can be challenged by efficiency, coordination and sustainability issues” (Duke and Courtier 2009, 4).

2.1.2 The EU’s Understanding of Peacebuilding

Growing interest in the conceptualisation of peacebuilding in “EU terms’ emerged in European studies alongside the EU’s institutional and policy development (Gross and Juncos 2011, 3). As Natorski (2011, 2) argues, this was not part of any preconceived general policy. The approach of the EU to peacebuilding instead emerged in response to events in the international community and general international discussions on peacebuilding. Later on, the EU adopted a mixed set of

2.1 The EU’s Path to Becoming a Peacebuilding Actor 13 white papers, strategic documents and guidelines that were gradually translated and incorporated into its activities.

Gross and Juncos (2011) note that even EU officials have no clear picture of what peacebuilding actually entails. Further, the various EU institutions (agencies, directorates, EU delegations in foreign countries etc.) do not always agree on understanding of the term. In the Commission’s vocabulary, peacebuilding is an instrument for preventing conflict. The latter generally refers to both long-term and short-term measures, including not only rapid preventive reactions to conflicts on the verge of erupting, but also preventing further escalation of current conflicts, including post-conflict stabilisation. As an activity covering all stages occurring before and after the start of conflict, it may be applied to all phases of a conflict, including in peace (ibid.).

Yet the Council uses different wording. In its perspective, peacebuilding forms part of crisis management and thus includes state-building, confidence-building and monitoring activities during the post-conflict stabilisation phase. There is hence a real possibility of the Commission and the Council’s instruments overlapping each other in the post-conflict stabilisation phase. Nonetheless, in practice developments have gradually blurred the distinction between the definitions within the EU framework (ibid.).