The European Union’s Approach to Conflict Resolution: Transformation or Regulation in the Western Balkans?

Description

This book investigates and explains the European Union’s approach to conflict resolution in three countries of the Western Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. In doing so, it critically interrogates claims that the EU acts as an agent of conflict transformation in its engagement with conflict-affected states. The book argues, contrary to the assumptions of much of the existing literature, that rather than seeking the transformation of conflicts, the EU pursues a more conservative strategy based on the regulation of conflict through the promotion of institutional mechanisms such as consociational power sharing and decentralisation. Drawing on discourse analysis of documents, speeches, and interviews conducted by the author with European Union officials and policy-makers in Brussels and the case-study countries, the book offers a theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous and empirically detailed analysis of EU policy preferences, of the ideas that underpin them, and of how those preferences are legitimised. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested in ethnic conflict and conflict resolution, the politics of the Balkans, and the external and foreign policies of the EU. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of tables Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction Theoretical framework A note on methods Structure of the book Note 1 The EU and approaches to conflict resolution Mechanisms of EU influence over conflicts Foreign policy mechanisms Conflict resolution through integration and association The EU’s conceptualisation of conflict resolution Understanding conflict transformation Approaches to institutional design in deeply divided societies Consociationalism Centripetalism Power dividing Institutional design, identity and conflict transformation The need for a better understanding of the EU’s approach to conflict resolution Summary Notes 2 Bosnia and Herzegovina: (not) reforming an ideal-typical consociation Historical background The Bosnian War The Dayton Agreement and its discontents EU policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina Understanding the construction of EU conflict resolution policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina The changing rationale for constitutional reform Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ongoing identity conflict Interpreting nationalist mobilisation Framing and legitimation of EU policies Summary Notes 3 Macedonia: constitutional engineering in a time of crisis Macedonia’s conflict in context Avoiding conflict in the 1990s The 2001 crisis and its explanation(s) Managing conflict in Macedonia The role of the EU The Ohrid Framework Agreement Understanding the construction of EU conflict resolution policy in Macedonia Narrating the 2001 crisis Understanding Ohrid: policy learning or the art of the possible? Framing Ohrid as a ‘European’ settlement Summary Notes 4 Kosovo: establishing a ‘multi-ethnic society’? Historical background From autonomy to conflict Towards supervised independence EU policy in Kosovo Understanding the construction of EU conflict resolution policy in Kosovo Unpacking the ‘multi-ethnic society’ concept Integration through decentralisation? Counteracting segregation? The role of civil society Framing conflict resolution policy as European Summary Notes 5 Rethinking the EU’s approach to conflict resolution Understanding the EU’s conceptualisation of conflicts: the role of the ‘ethnic conflict’ paradigm Explaining EU conflict resolution policy preferences Institutionalising difference Explaining policy variation: learning or context? Legitimising EU conflict resolution policies The EU as a ‘force for good’ in the Western Balkans Framing conflict resolution policies as ‘European’ Summary Note Conclusion Transformation or regulation? The EU’s approach to conflict resolution Reflexivity, limitations and possibilities for further research Summary References Index