A Challenge to the Liberal Peace? European Union Peacebuilding faces China in Nepal

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-381
Author(s):  
Julia Strasheim ◽  
Subindra Bogati
Keyword(s):  
Local Perceptions ◽  
China’S Rise ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
China's Rise ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Security Actor ◽  
Constitution Building ◽  
Liberal Peacebuilding ◽  
The Eu

Abstract How does China’s rising presence in Nepal affect the European Union’s own peacebuilding efforts in the country? As a global peace and security actor, the EU has followed the liberal peacebuilding model that promotes peace by strengthening democratic institutions. China’s rise as a “pragmatic” peacebuilder is often called non-conducive to this approach, but how this dynamic plays out has rarely been studied with detailed case evidence. We narrow this gap using the case of Nepal. Drawing on interviews conducted between 2015 and 2020, we find that China’s rise has decreased the EU’s leverage in promoting peace in the areas of civil society, human rights, and constitution-building. But some setbacks in the peace process were unrelated to China. Instead, they were also linked to the EU’s own reform neglects and policy differences, and to local perceptions about peacebuilders, showing how external and internal challenges jointly affect the EU’s role as peacebuilder.

scholarly journals The Limits of the EU as a Peace and Security Actor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meike Froitzheim ◽  
Fredrik Söderbaum ◽  
Ian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Test Case ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Organizational Complexity ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Security Actor ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is increasingly aspiring to be a global peace and security actor. Using the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a test case to analyse such ambitions, this article reveals that the EU's attempts to build peace and security are severely compromised by its bureaucratic and organizational complexity as well as by its ineffective policies. In fact, the EU's state-centred approach in the DRC has resulted in the EU's inability to deal with 1) the realities of governance in the DRC and 2) the strong trans-border dimensions of the conflict. As a result, the EU continues to lack a coherent strategy for the DRC, despite a large budget. The analysis concludes that the EU is more concerned with establishing a symbolic presence and a form of representation than with achieving specific goals.

scholarly journals EU peacebuilding’s new khaki: Exceptionalist militarism in the trading of good governed for military-capable states

Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 026339572094734
Author(s):  
Marta Iñiguez de Heredia
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
International Order ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Liberal Peacebuilding ◽  
The Eu

This article explores how European Union (EU) peacebuilding is being reconfigured. Whereas the EU was once a bulwark of liberal peacebuilding, promoting a rule of law–based international order, it is now downplaying the goal of good governance and placing military capacity as central for international peace and security. Several works have analysed these changes but have not theorised militarism, despite war-waging and war-preparation have marked EU peacebuilding’s direction. The article argues that EU peacebuilding continues to expose elements of liberal militarism since its origins but is now changing from what Mabee and Vucetic call a nation-statist to an exceptionalist militarism. This shift implies that peace has ceased to be served by the intervention of sovereignty with a discourse based on the link between order, good governance, and human rights and is now premised on the upholding of sovereignty, even if that means the suspension of rights. The research draws on thematic analysis of EU documents and interviews undertaken with EU and G5 Sahel officials and managers of EU-funded peacebuilding programmes. It also briefly analyses the case of the Sahel as an example of how the build-up of states’ military capacity is strengthening states’ capacity to override human rights and repressing dissent.

Power/Knowledge in International Peacebuilding: The Case of the EU Police Mission in Bosnia

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Merlingen ◽  
Rasa Ostrauskaite
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Defense Policy ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
International Construction ◽  
Democratic Policing ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
International Peacebuilding ◽  
Liberal Peacebuilding ◽  
The Eu

This article develops the argument that peacebuilding brings into play microphysical and nonsovereign forms of power that circulate through opaque capillaries that link foreign peacebuilders and indigenous populations. It examines the governmentality of liberal peacebuilding and the practices of “unfreedom” it licenses; brings into focus the constellation of social control that is effected by the EU's efforts, in the context of its security and defense policy, to promote democratic policing in Bosnia; and shows how a normatively committed form of governmentality theory can be employed to limit the inevitable political pastorate in the international construction of liberal peace in posthostility societies.

scholarly journals Introduction: Weathering the Storm?

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-326
Author(s):  
Andreas Grimmel ◽  
Julia Strasheim
Keyword(s):  
Current Trend ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Eu Foreign Policy ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Promoting peace and security in Europe, its neighbourhood, and in the world, is at the heart of how the European Union (EU) understands itself and its global political role. In recent years, however, both the tangible role of the EU in fostering peace beyond its borders and the Union’s famous image as a ‘normative power’ have met substantial challenges. The challenges, which fundamentally alter the context in which the EU supports peace and security, include EU-internal factors, such as democratic backsliding in some member states, electoral success of populist far right parties, or disagreements over migration. They also include external factors, notably the unravelling transatlantic relationship under President Trump or the rise of China in the peace and security domain. This article introduces the special issue ‘Weathering the Storm? The EU as a Global Peace and Security Actor in Turbulent Times’. It first discusses the numerous tests the EU faces in fostering peace beyond its borders, and how past research has evaluated and interpreted the effect of these challenges on EU foreign policy. It then outlines two interrelated shortcomings of past research: an ‘EU navel-gazing’ and focus on how EU policies come into being in Brussels, rather than studying how these policies are implemented ‘on the ground’ – coupled with a lack of interdisciplinary conceptual and empirical debate between peace and conflict research and European Studies. Finally, it discusses how the articles that make up this special issue help to address these shortcomings and how they contribute to the current trend in blurring the lines between domestic and international politics.

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