Strategic Communication for Crisis Management Operations of International Organisations: ISAF Afghanistan and EULEX Kosovo. EU Diplomacy Paper 1/2010, January 2010

Peters, Severin (2010) Strategic Communication for Crisis Management Operations of International Organisations: ISAF Afghanistan and EULEX Kosovo. EU Diplomacy Paper 1/2010, January 2010. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

Strategic communication is crucial for the success of civilian and military crisis management operations. Domestic publics have to be convinced that the operations are worth pursuing, and the publics in the countries where the operations take place have to be persuaded to support the missions’ objectives. Two major security actors have recently increased their strategic communication efforts: the EU, with EULEX Kosovo, and NATO, with the ISAF mission. Through a comparative study of these two cases, this paper addresses the question how and why strategic communication of the EU and NATO in crisis management operations varies and what general principles of strategic communication of international organisations can be deduced. NATO has recently stepped up its communication activities due to domestic pressure, while communication for EULEX remains technical and information-oriented because of the political disagreements among EU member states regarding Kosovo. I argue that five factors determine the communicative roles of international organisations: the role of the member states, the need for domestic ratification, the possibility of promoting the international organisation through the operation, the international organisation’s communicative capabilities and the importance of the foreign public to the success of the operation. The member states’ communicative activity largely determines the communicative tasks of international organisations. If member states require domestic ratification, they are likely to boost their domestic communication efforts, which makes a ‘unity of message’ difficult for international organisations that then have to focus primarily on coordinating member states’ domestic communication efforts. Additionally, member states are generally more reluctant to communicate to foreign publics, forcing international organisations to assume communicative leadership.

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