Publications
Islander innovation: A research and action agenda on local responses to global issues
Europe’s Return to UN Peacekeeping in Africa? Lessons from Mali
In a break from recent tradition, European member states are currently contributing significant military capabilities to a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation in Africa. Europeans are providing more than 1,000 troops to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) by staffing a wide range of operations including an intelligence fusion cell, transport and attack aircraft, and special forces. Yet for European troop-contributing countries (TCCs) that have spent several years working in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Afghanistan, participating in a UN mission has been a process of learning and adaptation. For the UN, the contributions of key capabilities by European countries have pushed the UN system to adjust to the higher expectations of the new European TCCs, which has proved difficult in Mali’s complicated operating environment and political situation. The report examines this complex relationship and shows the challenges and opportunities for both the UN and its European member states participating in MINUSMA. In terms of challenges, the report identifies obstacles facing European TCCs as they adapt to the UN peacekeeping system, the domestic political concerns of European TCCs, and the need for increased partnership among TCCs within the mission. In terms of opportunities, the report finds the potential of European military contributions to strengthen UN peacekeeping operations facing capability constraints and the UN’s ability to learn and adjust to increasingly asymmetric threat environments, as it responds to the needs of European TCCs.
United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad I and II (MINURCAT I + II)
This chapter focuses on the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT I + II), a peacekeeping mission deployed by the UN Security Council in September 2007 to address some of the spillover effects of the war in Darfur, Sudan. MINURCAT was initially protected by a smaller European force, EUFOR, to carry out its mandate to protect civilians in danger, including refugees and displaced persons, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid in Chad. After providing an overview of the crisis in Chad, the chapter outlines MINURCAT’s mandate and evaluates its operational achievements and limitations, as well as the important lessons that can be learned from its experience.
Governing Cocaine Supply and Organized Crime from Latin America and the Caribbean: The Changing Security Logics in European Union External Policy
The logics of the European Union’s policy and practices against narcotic drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have undergone a substantial shift the past decade: from development to security. Based on an empirical mapping of the EU’s drug-related projects in LAC, this article argues that an ‘integrated and balanced’ approach to drugs policy is being replaced by a bifurcation between the broader domains of development policy and security policy. Questions are raised as to how the EU’s projects on development and security might counteract one another, and how the Union’s programme aimed at dismantling transnational organized crime along the cocaine trafficking routes to Europe might have unintended consequences. While keeping in mind the shifting tectonics of the international drug prohibition consensus, the article goes on to analyze the increasingly salient security rationale in EU external drugs policy against the backdrop of the EU’s emerging role as a global security actor. In doing so, it touches upon the intrinsic tensions between human rights and (supra) national security.
EU Leadership in Energy and Environmental Governance: Global and Local Challenges and Responses
This edited collection focuses on the impact of the changing global distribution of power on the EU's energy policy and ability to project its approach to energy-related issues abroad. The authors map the EU's energy governance, its changing global position and the impact of various factors on its capacity to pursue its interests in the field of energy. They also provide insights into the internal and external energy policy of the EU, and explores how various EU institutions shape energy policy. They examine, moreover, the state of the EU's relations with its external energy suppliers, such as Russia, and with other global energy actors, such as China, the main global consumer of energy; the USA, which is going through a technologically-driven energy revolution; and Brazil, which may become a key global energy player.
Faster Integration into the European Community: Mapping Ukrainian Public Servants’ Improvement Needs
Still a “Strategic” EU–NATO Partnership? Bridging Governance Challenges through Practical Cooperation
The EU and NATO share a common interest in responding effectively to threats posed by Russia in the east and by Islamic extremist to the south of Europe. However, bilateral issues and the pursuit of national interests, especially those involving Cyprus and Turkey, as well as a general lack of strategic convergence have limited theeffectiveness of both organisations’ crisis-management capabilities. In times of a deteriorating security environment these limitations will be even more detrimental for Euro - Atlantic security. Poland and Norway, participants in both the EU and NATO missions and two principal countries of the GoodGov project are well positioned to break this institutional deadlock.
Would a commodity-based trade approach improve market access for africa? A case study of the potential of beef exports from communal areas of Namibia