The work carried out during the three years of EUNPACK consists of deepening the conceptual clarity of the issues at stake in crisis management, a comprehensive mapping of the EU’s crisis response mechanisms, and detailed analyses of EU polices in crisis management in the case countries. EUNPACK developed a framework that goes beyond the limitations of crisis management and extends to crisis resolution and critical crisis transformation. The approach has therefore made it possible to uncover and explore local agencies and perceptions in target countries without losing sight of the EU’s institutions and their expectations and ambitions. It has allowed us to analyse the full cycle of dynamic events, from EU intentions, motivations and subsequent implementation, to local actors’ perceptions and reactions, and back again to EU intentions and understanding, utilising a mix-methods approach that combined desk reviews with in-depth fieldwork, ranging from interviews, focus groups to perception surveys in all case countries. As the research unfolded through detailed empirical fieldwork, with EU delegations, other external stakeholders, national stakeholders, and more than 1300 interviews with people directly affected by the conflict in the case countries, we identified a related third gap in EU crisis response that we coined the ʻinformation-local ownershipʼ gap. As such, EUNPACK has expanded the strategic horizon of policy-makers as well as scholars’ analytical framework used in the evaluation of crisis response.
Key results
- The edited volume ‘The EU and Crisis Response’ (Mac Ginty, Pogodda & Richmond) is under review at Manchester University Press and Edinburgh University Press.
- A number of academic articles have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals, with two already being published (Mac Ginty, 2018; Rieker & Blockmans 2019).
Dissemination
- Final Conference in Brussels, 18-19/03/2019
- Joint H2020 Policy Roundtable, Brussels, 20/03/19, organized by EUNPACK in collaboration with H2020-funded projects EU-STRAT, FEUTURE and INFORM. Live-streamed at NUPI’s official YouTube channel.
- EUNPACK Policy Roundtable, Brussels, 20/03/19. Live-streamed at NUPI’s official YouTube channel.
- Presence at several high-ranking international academic conferences, such as MERI Forum 2018, GlobSec 2018 (Bratislava), Belgrade Security Forum, and ISA 2019 (Toronto). EUNPACK also visited the EU Training Mission’s (EUTM) headquarters in Bamako on 20/11/18.
Exploitation
- ‘Executive Summary of the Final Report & Selected Policy Recommendations: A conflict-sensitive unpacking of the EU comprehensive approach to conflict and crisis mechanisms’ (Bøås & Rieker 2019)
- The two-page summary ‘EUNPACK: Highlights and Recommendations’ (2019)
- Freie Universität Berlin held a graduate course over four semesters (2017-2018) titled ‘European Union foreign policy in action: crises and conflict management policy’, based on the analytical framework of EUNPACK. More than 90 students participated (EU, US , China, Russia)
- EUNPACK will also be a featured research project in CORDIS (publication date April 2019).