Europe ́s Coherence Gap in External Crisis and Conflict Management The EU’s Integrated Approach between Political Rhetoric and Institutional Practice. November 2019

Debuysere, Loes and Blockmans, Steven (2019) Europe ́s Coherence Gap in External Crisis and Conflict Management The EU’s Integrated Approach between Political Rhetoric and Institutional Practice. November 2019. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

The European Union (EU) aspires to play a part in conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict peace- building through civil and/or military operations, through stabilisation efforts, and by building resilience at home and abroad. To bring this ambition to fruition, EU institutions have gradually expanded their ‘comprehensive approach to external conflict and crisis’ (CA) to become a full-fledged ‘integrated approach to conflict and crisis’ (IA).1 In their most basic form, CAs seek coordination and coherence in responding to external conflicts and crises by adopting a system-wide ‘whole-of-government approach’ (WGA). In their more elaborate form, IAs have incorpo- rated non-traditional security concepts, variously known as conflict transformation, (non-liberal) peacebuilding and human-security approaches. In their most expansive form, IAs may even be understood to apply to external action writ large.

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