Democratic institution-building and conflict resolution: emerging EU approaches

Abstract

Support for democratization has become a central feature of European conflict resolution policies. However, the conceptualization of precisely how different institution building strategies dovetail with conflict resolution imperatives remains relatively weak. Approaches to democratic reform in conflict scenarios have emerged in an ad hoc fashion and are still unduly short-termist. Serious obstacles persist to the practical linking together of the human rights and peace support agendas. Support has been forthcoming for various forms of modified democracy that do not always bode well for the sustainability of peace.

Notes

Michael Lund, Preventing Violent Conflicts: A Strategy for Preventive Diplomacy, Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996, p.147.

Elisabeth Cousens, ‘Introduction’, in Cousens and Chetan Kumar (eds), Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001.

Lund (see n.1 above).

Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, New York: Norton, 2000, citations from p.315 and p.330. These limitations are also acknowledged by International IDEA, Deepening Democracy in Deeply Divided Societies (Stockholm, IDEA).

Eva Bertram, ‘Reinventing Governments: The Promise and Perils of United Nations Peace Building’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.39, No.3, 1995, pp.388 and 396; Daniel Druckman and Paul Stern, ‘Evaluating Peacekeeping Missions’, Mearshon International Studies Review, Vol.41, No.2, 1997, pp.153 and 160; Pauline H. Baker, ‘Conflict Resolution Versus Democratic Governance: Divergent Paths to Peace?’, in Chester A. Crocker, Fen Olser Hampson and Pamela Aall (eds), Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace 1996.

DfID, DfID (2001) Making Good Government Work, London, 2001.

Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, p.207.

Alexandros Yannis, Kosovo Under International Administration: An Unfinished Conflict, Athens: Greek Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, 2001, p.67.

Oda Van Cranenburgh, ‘International Policies to Promote African Democratization’, in Jean Grugel, Democracy Without Borders: Transnationalization and Conditionality in New Democracies, London: Routledge, 1999, p.100.

Tony Chafer, ‘Franco-African Relations: No Longer so Exceptional?’, African Affairs, No.101, 2002, pp.343–63.

Michael Bratton, ‘International versus Domestic Pressures for Democratization in Africa’, in William Hale and Eberhard Kienle (eds), After the Cold War: Security and Democracy in Africa and Asia, London: I.B. Taurus, 1997, p.174.

Peter Uvin, ‘Difficult Choices in the New Post-Conflict Agenda: The International Community in Rwanda after the Genocide’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2001, p.186 (pp.177–89).

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Commission of the European Communities, Report of the EU Rapid Reaction Mechanism Assessment Mission, Brussels, 2002.

Philip Naylor, France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000, pp. 241–2; Richard Youngs, The European Union and the Promotion of Democracy: Europe's Mediterranean and Asian Policies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, ch.3; more critically, Hugh Roberts, ‘Dancing in the Dark: The European Union and the Algerian Drama’, in Richard Gillespie and Richard Youngs (eds), The European Union and Democracy Promotion: The Case of North Africa, London: Frank Cass, 2002.

International IDEA. Op. Cit.

Marta Martinelli, ‘Conflict Prevention and the Great Lakes: The Belgian Presidency's Emerging Agenda’, European Security Review, No.8, Oct. 2001, p.6.

Sophi da Câmara and Andrew Sherrif, The EU's Development Response towards Crisis and Conflict Affected Countries, ECDPM-International Alert, 2001, p.14.

Bertram (see n.5 above).

Interviews, Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management Unit and Europe Aid, January 2002.

Interviews, European Council Secretariat, European Commission (Relex) and Europe Aid, January 2002.

Mats Berdal. ‘United Nations Peacekeeping in the Former Yugoslavia’, in Donald D. Daniel and Bradd C. Hayes (eds), Beyond Traditional Peacekeeping, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995, p.245.

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Figures from: Commission of the European Communities, European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, 1999; Council Secretariat, EU Annual Report on Human Rights 1998–99, 1999; Commission of the European Communities, Report on the Implementation of Measures Intended to Promote the Observance of Human Rights and Democratic Principles in External Relations 1996–99, 2000; Aidan Cox and Jenny Chapman, Les Programmes de Coopération Extérieure de la Communauté Européene, Commission and London: ODI, 1999; Aidan Cox and Antonique Koning, Understanding European Community Aid, London: ODI, 1997; OECD, Development Cooperation Efforts of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee, Paris: OECD, 2002. See Appendix to this volume for a breakdown of budget categories and institutional structures governing European democracy assistance.

Gordon Crawford, Foreign Aid and Political Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Democracy Assistance and Political Conditionality, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, p.112.

Câmara and Sherrif (see n.18 above), pp.10, 13.

Financial Times, 30 Oct. 2001, p.12.

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Bertram (see n.5 above).

Philip Terrence Hopmann, ‘An Evaluation of the OSCE's Role in Conflict Management’, in Heinz Gärtner, Adrian Hyde-Price and Erich Reiter (eds) Europe's New Security Challenges, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001.

See Commission (n.24 above), for this breakdown of spending. For an outline of the legal reform ‘target groups’, see p.17.

Catherine Dalpino, Deferring Democracy: Promoting Openness in Authoritarian Regimes, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press. On this problem within US work, see Tom Carothers, ‘The Many Agendas of Rule of Law Reform in Latin America’, in Pilar Domingo and Rachel Sieder (eds), Rule of Law in Latin America: The International Promotion of Judicial Reform, London: ILAS, 2001, pp.12–13.

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Karin von Hippel, Democracy by Force, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.85–7.

Agence Europe, 23 Jan. 2002, p.1.

Commission, Compendium.

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