EU, Conflict Transformation and Civil Society

Promoting Peace from the Bottom Up

Bibliographic Data

ID12968443
AuthorsNathalie Tocci (0000-0002-2097-0595, Istituto Affari Internazionali, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume5
Issue3
Publication date2013-07-05
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of European Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1918-7173 • E-ISSN: 1918-7181
PublisherCanadian Center of Science and Education (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5539/res.v5n3p28
OpenAlexW2134171405
LanguageEN
References cited17

The European Union established in order to bring about peace on the continent has instinctively considered conflict resolution a cardinal objective of its fledging foreign policy. Specifically, it has aimed at reconciling societies and transforming conflict, above simply managing crises and inducing settlements. In view of this, the EU has considered civil society as a key actor in conflict settings. This article seeks to unpack how the EU can engage with civil society actors in conflict areas as well as to provide an analytical framework to understand the EU’s impact on conflict through its engagement with civil society. To do so, the article posits three hypotheses: the liberal peace, the disembedded civil society and the Gramscian hypotheses. Rather than addressing which and to what extent these hypotheses apply in the abstract, this article presents a number of empirical examples drawn from the EU’s engagement with civil society organizations in several neighbourhood conflicts in order to illustrate their relevance for analysis

Civil society · Conflict resolution · Conflict transformation · Economics · European union · Human settlement · Order (exchange · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Relevance (law · Sociology · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration · Religion, Society, and Development