The EU’s self promotion as a ‘conflict manager’ is embedded in a discourse about its ‘shared values’ and their foundation in a connection between security, development and democracy. This book provides a collection of essays based on the latest cutting edge research into the EU’s active engagement in conflict management. It maps the evolution of EU policy and strategic thinking about its role, and the development of its institutional capacity to manage conflicts.

Case studies of EU conflict management within the Union, in its neighbourhood and further afield, explore the consistency, coherence, and politicization of EU strategy at the implementation stage. The essays examine the extent to which the EU can exert influence on conflict dynamics and outcomes. Such influence depends on a number of changing factors: how the EU conceptualizes conflict and policy solutions; the balance of interests within the EU on the issue (divided or concerted) and the degree of politicization in the EU's role; the scope for an external EU role; and the value attached by the conflict parties to EU engagement – a value that is almost wholly bound to their interest in a membership perspective (or other strong relationship to the EU) rather than to ‘shared values’ as an end in themselves.

This book was based on a special issue of Ethnopolitics.