Explores the EU's relations with civil society organizations in an effort to improve the effectiveness and relevance of its conflict and peace policies.

Until recently, the European Union tended to view violent mass conflicts predominantly through the lens of negotiations between conflict leaders and powerful external actors. Today, the EU has begun to recognize the imperative of understanding and influencing developments on the ground in conflict situations by engaging with local civil society. The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict explores the EU's relations with civil society organizations at the local level, in an effort to improve the effectiveness and relevance of its conflict and peace strategies. Looking in particular at the eastern and southern neighbourhoods, the volume analyses five case studies of EU and local civil society interaction in: Georgia & Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova & Transnistria, Israel & Palestine and Morocco & Western Sahara. Through the comparative examination of these cases, this volume draws broad policy guidelines tailored to governmental and non-governmental action. Exploring the impact of the European Union in conflicts beyond its borders through its engagement with civil society, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the EU, civil society and conflict.

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

This publication explores violence, conflict and peace. It focuses on the non-governmental component in ethno-policitcal conflicts. Civil society actors, or "conflict society organizations" (CoSOs), are increasingly central in view of the complexity of contemporary ethno-political conflicts. CoSOs are key players in ethno-political conflicts, both as violators and as promoters of human rights. Nevertheless, the precise relationships underpinning the human rights-civil society-conflict nexus have not been fully examined. This volume analyses the impact of civil society on ethno-political conflicts through their human rights-related activities, and identifies the means to strengthen the complementarity between civil society and international governmental actors in promoting peace. These aims are addressed in case studies on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Turkey's Kurdish question, and Israel-Palestine.

"Until recently, the European Union tended to view violent mass conflicts predominantly through the lens of negotiations between conflict leaders and powerful external actors. Today, the EU has begun to recognize the imperative of understanding and influencing developments on the ground in conflict situations by engaging with local civil society. The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict explores the EU's relations with civil society organizations at the local level, in an effort to improve the effectiveness and relevance of its conflict and peace strategies. Looking in particular at the eastern and southern neighbourhoods, the volume analyses five case studies of EU and local civil society interaction in: Georgia & Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova & Transnistria, Israel & Palestine and Morocco & Western Sahara. Through the comparative examination of these cases, this volume draws broad policy guidelines tailored to governmental and non-governmental action. Exploring the impact of the European Union in conflicts beyond its borders through its engagement with civil society, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the EU, civil society and conflict"--Provided by publisher.

The European Union considers conflict resolution as a cardinal objective of its foreign policy. It makes use of a number of policy instruments to promote conflict transformation through 'constructive engagement', which cover a range of sectors affecting conditions and incentives at the micro level. The EU has recognised the importance of engaging with civil society in situations of violent conflict, but needs to engage more with local civil society to make its policies more effective. This paper provides a conceptual framework and discussion to analyse which local civil society actors play a role in conflict and conflict transformation, through which activities they impact on conflicts and how, what determines their effectiveness, and finally how EU neighbourhood policies can enhance their constructive impact in peacefully transforming conflicts in its near abroad by engaging with civil society.

This book analyzes how international organizations and the European Union engage with civil society to pursue their policy goals. Multi-stakeholder initiatives, private-public partnership, sub-contracting, political alliances, hybrid coalitions, multi-sectoral networks, pluralist co-governance, and indeed foreign policy by proxy are all considered. Bringing together the most advanced scholarship, the book examines trade, environment, development, security, and human rights with reference to both EU and global institutional settings such as the WTO, UN Climate Summits, FAO, IFAD, ICC, UNHRC, UNSC, and at the EU level the DG FISMA, TRADE, CLIMA, DEVCO, HOME and ECHO. The book also studies the use of NGOs in the foreign policy of the EU, USA, and Russia. This changing politics and the polarized debate it has generated are explored in detail.