The EU and Postmodern Peacebuilding: Bridging the Capabilities-Expectations Gap and Coping with Contemporary Conflicts.

Abstract: After the Cold War the nature and character of international conflict has changed dramatically, from traditional inter-state conflicts to protracted social conflicts. This constitutes a major challenge to contemporary peacebuilders, foremost the UN, but the expanding size and number of peacekeeping missions are threatening to erode UN resources. Peacebuilding scholars have different views on what actually denotes the concept, but the need for a more holistic approach has been emphasised, which requires short-medium- and long-term engagement in different activities. Democracy, good governance, and economic development have replaced the old, Cold War- notions of conflict resolution, which entailed mainly security and military priorities. In that sense, it is natural that the first post-modern political entity, the European Union, has come up with the ambition and aspiration to intervene in conflicts and crises around the world, and to contribute to peacebuilding. Nevertheless, there are many challenges and risks involved in that endeavour, and the institutional basis of the EU may not yet be sufficient in terms of dealing with short-term crisis responses and the medium- to long-term tasks in conflict zones.