The European Union as a Crisis Manager and Security Provider in Decline?
Capabilities, Expectations and Realities in an Era of Geopolitics
Call for Papers open until 22 July 2026
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Call for Papers open until 22 July 2026 〰️
Over the past three decades, the European Union has sought to establish itself as an important actor in international security, including in the areas of conflict prevention, crisis management and peacebuilding. Academic research has focused on the EU’s role as a promoter of liberal values, democracy, economic interdependence, and institution-building through diplomacy, enlargement, development cooperation, and civilian missions and military operations under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Scholars have also explored the EU’s effectiveness in peace mediation and post-conflict reconstruction in regions such as the Western Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa. Although assessments of the EU’s effectiveness and impact have varied, there has been solid consensus in the literature that the EU has made important contributions to the management of global crises and conflicts.
However, recent geopolitical developments put into doubt the future validity of this conclusion. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a historic turning point for European security and challenged long-standing assumptions about peace on the continent. In light of enormous financial pressure on state budgets and the simultaneous erosion of multilateralism, spaces to make valuable contributions to address global crises might shrink for regional organisations, such as the EU. Moreover, the liberal peacebuilding approach that has traditionally informed the EU’s external action is increasingly replaced by a different set of foreign policy thinking, which is more elite-centred, exclusive and transactionalist in its core, and driven to a greater extent by national interests than by common values.
These shifts raise the important question of what the erosion of the multilateral rules-based order, the fragmentation of transatlantic relations, and the emergence of a more conflictual international environment mean for the EU’s ability to shape crisis management efforts worldwide.
The workshop aims to bring together scholars from European studies, international relations, security studies, and peace and conflict research to address several key questions:
To what extent and how has the EU already adapted its capabilities and practices to the changes in its international environment?
Can the EU remain a normative and peacebuilding actor while simultaneously becoming a geopolitical power?
How can the EU and its member states address the gap between ambitious policy rhetoric and actual operational practice in crisis management and peacebuilding?
What are the implications of the EU’s rearmament and growing defence spending on its capacity to address conflicts worldwide?
How does the changing transatlantic relationship shape the future of EU crisis management efforts in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa?
We welcome contributions that focus on various fields of inquiry, such as:
CSDP missions and operations
EU military capacity building to external partners (incl. via the European Peace Facility)
EU peace mediation and preventive diplomacy
EU development cooperation and humanitarian aid
Institutionalization and decision-making in EU crisis management
Democratic accountability of EU crisis management policies
Effectiveness and impact of EU conflict management interventions
Partnerships with other security providers and international organizations
Paper proposals (of around 300 words) should be sent by 22 July 2026 to Dr Julian Bergmann (Julian.Bergmann@idos-research.de) and Dr Iulian Romanyshyn (romanyshyn@ici-institute.de). We welcome paper proposals with diverse theoretical, methodological, and empirical orientations.
As we aim for a collaborative publication project at a later stage, all paper proposals will be subject to a rigorous selection process. Once selected, draft papers should be submitted by 17 November 2026.
The organizers will cover meals, transportation to/from Bonn and accommodation costs for the selected participants.
