Conflict in the European Neighbourhood

Work Package Leader:
Dr. Nathalie Tocci – Istituto Affari Internazionali
Researchers:
Michael Emerson and Gergana Noutcheva – Centre for European Policy Studies
Nona Mikhelidze – Istituto Affari Internazionali

Publications:

PWP1: The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation: A Conceptual Framework - Nathalie Tocci

PWP3: Civil Society and Conflict Transformation in Abkhazia, Israel/Palestine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Western Sahara - Nona Mikhelidze and Nicoletta Pirozzi

PWP10: Civil Society Building Peace in the European Neighbourhood: towards a new framework for joining forces with the EU - Natalia Mirimanova

PWP11: Engaging Civil Society in the Nagorno Karabakh Conflict: What Role for the EU and its Neighbourhood Policy? - Licínia Simão

PWP12: Coming Too Late? The EU’s Mixed Approaches to Transforming the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Benoit Challand

PWP13: The EU, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation in Western Sahara: The Failure of Disengagement - Hakim Darbouche and Silvia Colombo

PWP14: The EU and Moldova’s Third Sector: Partners in Solving the Transnistria Conflict? - George Dura

PWP15: The EU and Civil Society in the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict - Nicu Popescu

PB3: The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation - Nathalie Tocci

Overview

This Work Package addresses ways of building linkages between micro level perspectives on violent mass conflicts and policy-making processes within the conflict-related policy agenda in the European Union. It applies this conceptual perspective to the specific analysis of conflicts within the European Neighbourhood. It particularly focusses on the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which has identified conflict resolution as a key priority.

The five selected case studies include two intra-state conflicts (Transniestria and Abkhazia), two inter-state conflicts (Israel-Syria-Lebanon and Nagorno Karabakh) and one conflict with intra and inter-state dynamics (Israel-Palestine).

Due to the wide scope of this project and the specific and in-depth nature of its questions, the empirical side of this research will be organised through semi-structured interviews with civil society actors and EU policy-makers, complemented if necessary by the formation of small focus groups from the conflict cases. Five principal interlocutors on each side of the five conflicts will be selected. However, in cases where regional actors play key determining roles, interviewees will also be ‘out of area’.

Interviewees will be chosen on the basis of their representativeness (official negotiators, opposition politicians, bureaucrats and civil society leaders).

Stage 1

This stage will seek to understand the internal domestic incentive structure underpinning these neighbourhood conflicts. This entails an analysis, which draws from the findings of the Conceptual Framework, as well as the insights from the Work Packages on risk, poverty and governance, of the structural conditions fuelling the present status quo in conflict countries including:

  • Poverty, inequality and social exclusion
  • Political, institutional and legal arrangements (rights, freedoms, discrimination, etc)

It will also identify the mid-level actors (at both official and civil society levels) fuelling or diffusing conflict dynamics. By drawing on the findings of the Work Packages on group formation, ethnic-religious tensions and migration, this Work Package will focus in particular on:

  • Political party leaders
  • Group leaders (ethnic or religious communities, refugees)
  • Civil society actors impacting locally on the structural conditions of conflict

Stage 2

This stage will analyse the Action Plans of the ENP conflict countries (published since 2004) under consideration, namely

  • Moldova (2004)
  • Georgia (2006)
  • Armenia (2006)
  • Azerbaijan (2006)
  • Israel (2004)
  • Palestinian Authority (2004)
  • Lebanon (2006)

Through an analysis of these official documents and mapping these findings with the conclusions reached in Stage 1, this Work Package examines whether and how the European Neighbourhood Policy (as opposed to other EU foreign policy initiatives) holds the potential to influence the micro and mid-level structural and agency related features/causes in these five conflicts. The following questions will be addressed:

  • Do the Action Plans tackle questions related to poverty and social exclusion there where these are identified as structural causes of conflicts?
  • Do the Action Plans open the space for the political and policy-making involvement/participation of ethnic or religious group leaders there where these have been identified as key local actors in conflicts?
  • What effect does this have on their incentives and behaviour?

Stage 3

This stage will assess whether the European Neighbourhood Policy’s potential, there where it exists, is being materialized in practice. This will involve an analysis of the periods in which the APs were negotiated (2003-04 and 2004-06) and implemented (2004-). The following questions will be addressed:

  • To what extent has the European Neighbourhood Policy, to date, altered the structural conditions of conflict?
  • To what extent has the European Neighbourhood Policy mainstreamed the participation of non-governmental actors and what effect (if any) has this had on these actors’ ideas and actions in relation to the conflict?

This stage entails semi-structured interviews with EU officials as well as the selected mid-level governmental or non-governmental actors in conflict countries. Interviews and discussions with mid/micro-level actors will be discussed, where possible, through organized focus groups.

Research results

  • Five reports on the micro/mid-level causes/symptoms of the five Neighbourhood conflicts and their interaction with ENP policies and instruments
  • A comparative report drawing out also the wider lessons learnt concerning the potential and practice of the ENP in affecting the domestic sources of conflict in Neighbourhood countries
  • The policy-relevant conclusions of this WP will draw out the specific mechanisms through which the ENP’s instruments can affect (positively) the micro causes of the selected Neighbourhood conflicts. A policy brief will be circulated amongst the relevant EU and member state officials.

Countries studied in this Work Package

Azerbaijan
Abkhazia
Georgia
Israel
Lebanon
Moldova
Palestine
Syria