Michael Merlingen – författare

This new book provides an in-depth analysis of the projects of improvement carried out by the civilian peacebuilding missions in Bosnia and Macedonia, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault to make the case that the EU’s (self-) image as a model peacebuilder conceals another side of the European Security and Defence Policy. The authors explore the double-sided nature of peacebuilding missions, on the one hand, as a way to pacify, democratize, humanize and improve life in societies emerging from crisis or violence and, on the other hand, as a kind of political pastorate that limits the range of acceptable heterogeneity by refashioning, repositioning and reorganizing subjects in line with transcendentalized notions of good governance. The authors develop a limited reform agenda for how EU police missions can fold an agonistic generosity more deeply into their civilizing ethos in order to ensure they have a light expatriate footprint in their host countries. The prescriptive part of the book also discusses generic problems in the implementation of EU police reforms and suggests ways to overcome these challenges. This book will be of great interest to students of European politics, sociology, political science and theory.

Security and defence is the area in which the EU has advanced most in recent years. A principal element of this process is the proliferating number of military and civilian crisis management missions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Clearly, Europe has come a long way since the disappointments and frustration in the 1990s, when, in light of the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, analysts argued that the EU foreign and security policy was ‘neither common, nor foreign, nor dealing with security, nor (could) be called a policy.’ Since then the newly developed European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has become the necessary framework for the formulation and implementation of effective European security policy.This book is the first-ever in-depth inquiry of the ESDP in action. It analyzes the implementation of military and civilian missions in the Balkans, Southern Caucasus, Africa and Asia and asks what impact they have on the ground. The EUJUST Themis in Georgia, the Aceh Monitoring Mission in Indonesia as well as EUSEC-R.D. Congo and EUPOL Kinshasa are examined in The European Security and Defence Policy will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, security, European studies, foreign policy, peacekeeping and transatlantic relations.

This new book provides an in-depth analysis of the projects of improvement carried out by the civilian peacebuilding missions in Bosnia and Macedonia, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault to make the case that the EU’s (self-) image as a model peacebuilder conceals another side of the European Security and Defence Policy. The authors explore the double-sided nature of peacebuilding missions, on the one hand, as a way to pacify, democratize, humanize and improve life in societies emerging from crisis or violence and, on the other hand, as a kind of political pastorate that limits the range of acceptable heterogeneity by refashioning, repositioning and reorganizing subjects in line with transcendentalized notions of good governance. The authors develop a limited reform agenda for how EU police missions can fold an agonistic generosity more deeply into their civilizing ethos in order to ensure they have a light expatriate footprint in their host countries. The prescriptive part of the book also discusses generic problems in the implementation of EU police reforms and suggests ways to overcome these challenges. This book will be of great interest to students of European politics, sociology, political science and theory.