Institute of Political Science

RegioConf Approach

Our research is focused on the regional integration strategy of the EU and its impact on conflict resolution. Within this strategy, we are looking at all different processes with regional components. We base our research on a broad sociological conflict notion, which defines conflict as a general incompatibility of subject positions.

Our research therefore proceeds in two steps. In a first step we analyze the EU strategy of regional integration. In this part of the analysis we describe the main features of the EU´s approach towards regional conflicts. In a second step of the research we focus on the implementation of the regionalization strategy and on the impact this strategy has had on regional conflicts. We furthermore explain success or failure of the EU integration strategy in transforming regional conflicts.

There may be a set of different scenarios of observable change in regional conflicts. First, the EU may have a direct impact on the formation of new regional institutions and rules. Second, the EU may have an impact on the region without being aware of it. Third, the EU may (intentionally) have followed different policies than it had claimed in its regional strategy. We thus need to distinguish between direct and indirect influence of the EU. We can trace direct influence by considering the change of institutional rules and settings within a region. More indirect forms of influence may be found in interviews which show the motivations of regional actors of changing their behavior. In this context we need to include possible indirect consequences of EU action into our analysis. By this, we mean effects on regional actors, networks and flows (people, goods, interaction, intensity of exchange).

We will pay attention to specific references to the EU made by the regional actors and to whether the EU is used as legitimization for a specific regional action. Furthermore we need to consider whether the EU crisis may have changed the way in which the EU is used as a legitimizer for a certain regional integration action.

With research emphasizing the ‘supply’ side of conflict resolution and thus focusing on the EU, there is a lack in the current literature concerning the ‘demand’ side and thus considering local demands for EU involvement (see Mattli 1999 for these two categories).On the demand side, the interests and receptiveness of local actors has been identified as crucial (Tocci 2007). On the supply side, EU influence interacts with that of other global actors, such as the UN, and great powers such as the US or China. These factors need to be integrated more consistently in a project on the promotion of regional cooperation and integration in conflict contexts:

In order to assess the strategy of regional integration of the EU, we draw upon a model of four different pathways of promoting regionalization:

Thereby we take a closer look at the supply (EU) and demand side (local actors) as well as at intervening other global actors.