How can the EU improve its response to crises?
Researchers within and beyond Europe have been studying the EU's approach to conflict and crises. Here's what they found out.
Islam Keeping Violent Jihadism at Bay in Times of Daesh: State Religious Institutions in Lebanon, Morocco and Saudi Arabia since 2013
Can official Islamic institutions play a role to curb Sunni jihadi violence? Most Arab governments have granted a role to such institutions in recent years. Yet, the cases of Lebanon, Morocco and Saudi Arabia exhibit considerable differences: Sunni religious institutions in Lebanon are weak and only have a domestic role, and face difficulties fulfilling this role. The corresponding institutions in Morocco and in Saudi Arabia, however, are powerful and also perform foreign policy roles through religious diplomacy. Mainstream Muslim scholars want to be recognised as allies in the global struggle against jihadi violence; they have common interests with Western and Arab governments in combating jihadi violence. However, in the current climate of government control over official religious institutions, they lack the popular legitimacy needed to fight against violent jihadism. Religious institutions cannot be efficient when used as tools by authoritarian Arab governments. Political subjugation of religious clerics is a major reason for the fragmentation of the religious field and a driver of radicalisation.
Five paradoxes EU must address to effectively respond to crises beyond its borders
Engaging in ongoing conflicts brings with it a set of extraordinary challenges.
Complexity thinking and adaptive peacebuilding
Cedric de Coning explores how complexity thinking can contribute to our understanding of how to create more inclusive peace processes, and how adaptive approaches enable local and external peacebuilders to apply new models of practice, experimentation and learning. These differ fundamentally from approaches where the role of peacebuilders is to implement a pre-designed intervention. De Coning suggests that pressure for change tends to accumulate over time often without signs of progress, and that key system changes occur during periods of turbulence when the self-sustaining ‘path dependencies of violence’ are disrupted. Adaptation does not imply embracing disorder or abandoning goals, but rather being more front-footed, coping with uncertainty, anticipating change and embracing experimentation.
The EU, Migrants and Refugees: Building Walls, Fueling Global Crisis?
Marking the end of the EUNPACK project, experts will discuss whether the EU’s crisis response in the Middle East and Sahel has been helpful or counterproductive.
Jenny Nortvedt
Jenny Nortvedt was a Junior Research Fellow in the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Development at NUPI.
Plugging the capability-expectations gap: towards effective, comprehensive and conflict-sensitive EU crisis response?
Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Union (EU) has spent considerable time and energy on defining and refining its comprehensive approach to external conflicts. The knock-on effects of new and protracted crises, from the war in Ukraine to the multi-faceted armed conflicts in the Sahel and the wider Middle East, have made the improvement of external crisis-response capacities a top priority. But has the EU has managed to plug the capability–expectations gap, and develop an effective, comprehensive and conflict sensitive crisis-response capability? Drawing on institutional theory and an approach developed by March and Olsen, this article analyses whether the EU has the administrative capacities needed in order to be an effective actor in this area and implement a policy in line with the established goals and objectives identified in its comprehensive approach.
Russian Governance of the North Caucasus: Dilemmas of force and inclusion
While Vladimir Putin’s Russia struggles to strike a balance between security and freedom within the Russian polity, nowhere is the problem as acute as in the eastern parts of the North Caucasus. This chapter reviews Russia’s approach to the republics in that region since Putin came to power, and asks what the potential for mobilisation against Russian rule in the North Caucasus amounts to. The current decrease in violence in the region is often taken as a sign of ‘success’ in curbing the insurgency. I argue that the heavy focus on repression and exclusion in Russian policies may well backfire and create conditions for a new mobilisation against Russian dominance.
Islamic Insurgents in the MENA Region. Global Threat or Regional Menace?
This working paper analyses a broad range of Islamic insurgents, spanning from the Sahel and North Africa to the Middle East, examining the threat that these groups represent on a regional and global scale. We assess their local, regional and global strategies and evaluate the extent to which they make use of Jihadist discourse to further local/regional aims, or whether they are more truly devoted to a global struggle, operationally as well as in discourse and rhetoric. We make use of several analytical dimensions and factors in a way that allows us to develop a threat assessment that seeks to disentangle the local, the regional and the global levels. In doing so, our aim is also to develop a methodological framework that may be used for analytical updates and future research in this region and elsewhere.
The Civilian Casualty Tracking Analysis and Response Cell in the African Union Mission in Somalia: an emerging best practice for AU peace support o...
The Civilian Casualty Tracking Analysis and Response Cell (CCTARC) tracks harm to civilians caused by the African Union Mission in Somalia’s (AMISOM) operations including death, injury, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and damage to property including livestock. The cell faces three main types of challenges: • Structural: the sectoral composition of AMISOM hinders effective exchange of information. • Operational: there is no fund to pay amends to victims. • Political: in the midst of competing strategic pressures, the CCTARC has not been adequately prioritised by the mission, African Union Commission, Troop Contributing Countries, and donors.