The project was initially focused on the security-governance paradoxes resulting from the European Union’s (EU) security practices in the Great Lakes region. However, the project ended up broadening the focus on the Great Lakes region to examine broadly the paradoxes found on the security and peace building policies of the European Union, and specifically on the granting of military capacity under the EU’s Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace. Peacebuilding, as central to both EU’s security and normative foreign policy goals, points to crucial and transversal issues in security, development and foreign policy, of the EU in general as well as specific regions. The project concerned two hypothesis. Firstly, military and security measures, to which the EU has contributed extensively, have militarised peacebuilding, without achieving security or peace goals. Secondly, the aim to support military and security self-regulation could imply that the EU is transferring the attainment of security goals to the target states, thus losing some control and autonomy. Thirdly, though the EU has aimed to balance security and normative goals, scholars have questioned the extent to which a military and security-driven agenda is effective and whether it represents an abandonment of the good-governance agenda.
The project is important because EU's peacebuilding encapsulates both strategic and normative goals. The EU has increased the number of military missions, peacebuilding has been made part of a broader EU strategy to tackle migration and terrorism, which are crucial security issues for the EU at the moment. The EU has spent and spends considerable number of resources for peacebuilding and it is important for European citizens and the public at large to understand whether these policies are effective or not.
The project asks three questions, which represent the main issues it is focused on: Is the practice of supporting military and security capacity undermining the good governance agenda? What implications does this have for EU’s normative commitments? And, how effective is this practice for achieving EU’s security goals? The research addresses and connects these debates through two specific innovations. It advances the concept of the ‘military capable’ state, and it proposes an innovative practice-based methodology that links military support to patterns of security practices in processes of intervention. These paradoxes will offer important insights about how security and normative goals in policy and implementation interplay.
The PARADOXGREATLAKES project seeks to identify several problematic consequences for EU’s security policies (the paradoxes), while applying and disseminating a novel methodological approach based on the study of practices. Following this approach, the action will advance the concept of military-capable states, and explore the EU’s transformation into a ‘security consumer’ in the Great Lakes and beyond. These objectives will entail:
1. Identifying the paradoxes emerging from the support of military capacity as part of EU’s security policies.
2. Developing a methodological framework that studies practices as patterns embedded in processes.
3. Contributing to debates in peace and conflict studies, security studies, EU’s foreign policy, and Great Lakes and other key regions related research providing strong empirical insights and theoretical innovation.
4. Addressing policy debates to facilitate the drafting of more effective policies.
5. Disseminating research results and encouraging the practical application of research to understand the nature of security practices and its implications.
