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ABSTRACT
While often caused by conflict, crises are treated by the EU as a phenomenon of their own. Contemporary EU crisis management represents a watering down of normative EU approaches to peacebuilding, reduced to a technical exercise with the limited ambition to contain spillover effects of crises. In theoretical terms this is a reversal, which tilts intervention towards EU security interests and avoids engagement with the root causes of the crises. This paper develops a novel crisis response typology derived from conflict theory, which ranges from crisis management to crisis resolution and (critical) crisis transformation. By drawing on EU interventions in Libya, Mali and Ukraine, the paper demonstrates that basic crisis management approaches are pre-eminent in practice. More promising innovations remain largely confined to the realms of discourse and policy documentation.
Acknowledgements
This article was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (EUNPACK- A conflict sensitive unpacking of the EU comprehensive approach to conflict and crises mechanism), under grant agreement no.: 693337.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Callinicos, Bonfire of Illusions; Calhoun and Derlugian, The Deepening Crisis; Gamble, Crisis Without End?; Walby, Crisis; Kjaer and Olsen, Critical Theories.
2. Habermas, The Faltering Project; Giddens, Turbulent and Mighty Continent; Offe, Europe Entrapped.
3. Batora et al., ‘EU crisis response’; Pietz, ‘Flexibility and Stabilization’.
4. European External Action Service, ‘Crisis management and Response’.
5. Mac Ginty and Richmond, ‘The Local Turn’.
6. Ferguson and Gupta, ‘Beyond “Culture”’, 6–23.
7. Bourdieu, Theory of Practice.
8. Offe, Europe Entrapped.
9. Batora et al., ‘EU crisis response’; Pietz, ‘Flexibility and Stabilization’.
10. Walby, Crisis, 14.
11. Batora et al., ‘EU crisis response’; Pietz, ‘Flexibility and Stabilization’.
12. Gamble, Crisis Without End?, 30.
13. Hay, Narrating Crisis, 255.
14. Walby, Crisis, 14.
15. Gamble, Crisis Without End?, 32.
16. Batora et al., ‘EU crisis response’; Pietz, ‘Flexibility and Stabilization’.
17. Roitman, ‘Stakes of Crisis’, 17–34.
18. Goldgeier & McFaul, ‘Liberal core’, 1–26.
19. Burton and Dukes, Conflict: introduction.
20. Galtung, Violence, Peace and Peace Research, 167–191.
21. Bouris and Schumacher, Revised European Neighbourhood Policy.
22. Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe’, 235–58.
23. Indeed, solidarity in cases of terrorist attacks, man-made or natural disasters is contractually mandated in Art. 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Treaty of Rome). Since the shape of this solidarity is not further defined though, this obligation cannot be enforced (see Batora et al., ‘EU crisis response’, 21).
24. Whitman, Civilian Power.
25. The crisis that emerged in Europe in 2015 as a consequence of the Syrian crisis is often mislabelled as a ‘refugee/migrant crisis’. Yet, as Scopioni (2018) shows, it is more accurately identified as a political crisis that resulted from the EU’s incomplete agreements, eroding its ability to deal with migration.
26. See references to a ‘comprehensive approach to external conflicts and crises’, indicating a holistic and integrated approach which implies a broader analysis, set of instruments and capabilities (EEAS, Shared Vision; Council of the European Union, Integrated Approach).
27. Mac Ginty, Pogodda, Richmond, EU and Crisis Response.
28. Mac Ginty and Richmond, ‘Local Turn’.
29. Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South.
30. Boege et al, Hybrid Political Orders; Albrecht and Wiuff, ‘Simultaneity of Authority’, 1–16.
31. Kissinger, A World Restored.
32. Bercovitch, Resolving International Conflicts; Bercovitch and Rubin, Mediation in IR; James, Peacekeeping.
33. Hammarskjold, Summary Study.
34. Princen, Intermediaries; Zartman, Practical Negotiator.
35. Galtung, Peaceful Means; Diehl, ‘Exploring Peace’.
36. Zartman, 2003: 19: James, Peacekeeping.
37. Dunn, Power Politics.
38. Galtung, Peaceful Means; Diehl, ‘Exploring Peace’.
39. Isard, Understanding conflict, chapter 2.
40. Azar, Protracted Social Conflict; Gurr, Why Men Rebel.
41. Dollard, Miller, & Sears, Frustration and Aggression; Runciman, Relative Deprivation, chapter 2; Berkowitz, Aggression.
42. Azar, ‘Protracted International Conflicts’, 61–63.
43. Azar, Management, 9–12.
44. MacMillan, ‘Whose Democracy’, 19.
45. Jones, Cosmopolitan Mediation?
46. Lederach, Building Peace.
47. Call and Cook, ‘On Democratisation’, 233–246.
48. UN, ‘High-level Meeting’.
49. Lederach, Preparing for Peace.
50. Chopra, Space of Peace, 338; Chopra, UN’s Kingdom; UN, ‘Report’; Carnegie Council, ‘Preventing Deadly Conflict’, 2–3.
51. Debrix and Weber, Rituals of Mediation, xv.
52. Patomaki, ‘Critical Theories’, 732; Bourdieu, Theory of Practice.
53. Mac Ginty and Richmond, ‘Local Turn’.
54. Galtung, Peaceful Means; Richmond and Franks, Peace Transitions; Boege et al, Hybrid Political Orders; Mac Ginty, ‘Hybridity’.
55. Brecher and Wilkenfeld, Study of Crisis.
56. Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’, 60–63; Boas et al., ‘Mali’, 17.
57. Boas et al., ‘Mali’.
58. ICG, ‘Fezzan’.
59. Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’, 16–19; Boas et al., ‘Mali’, 20–24.
60. Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’.
61. The mission was eventually launched half a year later. However, it had to be re-dedicated from anti-migration into anti-terrorism policy (Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’, 31).
62. Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’, 24.
63. ibid, 53.
64. ibid, 47.
65. Mac Ginty, Pogodda, Richmond, EU and Crisis Response.
66. Boas, ‘Mali’, 22.
67. Ibid.
68. See endnote 27.
69. For details, see: European Commission, ‘Supporting Jordan’.
70. Visoka and Doyle, ‘Neo-Functional Peace’.
71. Ivanshchenko-Stadnik et al., ‘Facing crises’, 49.
72. Tocci, EU Global Strategy.
73. Richmond, ‘Interventionary Order’.
74. Richmond, ‘Hybrid Peace’.
75. Boas et al., ‘Mali’, 23.
76. EU, ‘Shared Vision’.
77. Richmond, ‘Interventionary Order’.
78. Mac Ginty and Richmond, ‘Local Turn’.
79. Walby, Crisis.
80. Richmond and Mac Ginty, ‘Mobility’.
81. Gamble, Crisis Without End?
82. Peters, Foreign Policy, introduction.
83. Multiple interviews and observations from our different case studies confirmed this argument.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sandra Pogodda
Sandra Pogodda is Lecturer and Director of the MA programme in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manchester.
Roger Mac Ginty
Roger Mac Ginty is Director of the Durham Global Security Institute and Professor at the School of Government and International Affairs, both at Durham University. He edits the journal Peacebuilding (with Oliver Richmond) and directs the Everyday Peace Indicators project (with Pamina Firchow).
Oliver Richmond
Oliver Richmond is Professor in IR, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manchester. He is also International Professor at the Dublin City University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Tübingen. His publications include Peace Formation and Political Order in Conflict Affected Societies (Oxford University Press, 2016), Failed Statebuilding (Yale University Press, 2014).