The proposition that European integration may be historically relevant to conflict resolution is not new. Integration is inseparable from the intellectual traditions of European political thought in search of new forms of political organisation to secure Europe’s peace. References to a European union as a peace project are present in the writings of Maximilian de Béthune, Duc de Sully, reflecting on the role of a regional union to avoid the catastrophes of war, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Gottfried-Wilhelm Leibnitz, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the project of perpetual peace in Europe, Novalis on Christian unity, Victor Hugo on the United States of...

The purpose of this chapter is to develop an analytical framework for the study of the ways in which European integration affects conflict resolution processes. If integration is causally significant to resolving conflicts, then it must possess certain attributes and mechanisms of action which would distinguish it from other actors and processes, such as influential third powers, international organisations, structural interdependence, and liberal internationalism. The objective is to identify the elements and causal paths of integration with a capacity to resolve conflict and to contribute new insights into the intriguing relationship between European integration and peace. Building upon the proposition...

This case study examines the original application of regional integration as a system of conflict resolution in the example of the Franco-German relationship of the 1950s. The process of Franco-German reconciliation is critically important for ordering the history of European integration. It offers important insights into the formative stages of the European construction and its importance relative to other designs of international organisation. It also informs much of the contemporary understandings of the political relevance of integration to European politics and societies.

A specific feature of the Franco-German relationship is the historical continuity of enmity and war. Rivalry dates back...

The proposition that external actors facilitated but did not causally affect the peace process represents the null hypothesis on the EU’s involvement in Northern Ireland. It posits that the sources of conflict resolution were endogenous only, with trivial or random external influence. From this standpoint, the task of examining the EU’s role as a factor of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is unproblematic. Most analyses agree that EU contributions have dwarfed the interventions of the UK and Ireland as principal stakeholders in the process and that in contrast to the United States, the EU has remained outside the negotiation...

The Cyprus conflict¹ is another problematic case for Europeanisation. The evolution of the EU’s involvement in its resolution is at odds with the historical reconciliation hypothesis on European integration. Against the evidence of Cyprus’s EU accession in 2004 as a divided country and the lack of progress in conflict resolution at the post-accession stage, no immediate claim can be made with regard to the EU’s positive role in it. The literature refers to the case as a failure of European integration to act as a credible incentive structure and induce conflict resolution in exchange for the benefits of EU membership...

In contrast to other conflicts in which its involvement has remained embedded in broader international influences, the EU’s impact on the Kosovo/Serbia conflict is characterised by increasing autonomy and centrality. An EU role in Kosovo first emerged as a result of intergovernmental coordination and diplomacy, and evolved into a process of governance ultimately subsumed under the European perspective for the countries in the Western Balkans. The application of a variety of policy tools in this process, however, has not been unproblematic. There are two key aspects to the issue: how conceptually adequate to the needs of conflict resolution and how...

This chapter reviews findings in the case studies and examines their implications for the literature on Europeanisation, European Union studies, and international conflict resolution. It presents an argument about the potential of the concept of Europeanisation and the governance perspective to explain the effects of European integration on conflicts. The chapter comments on the capacity of integration to affect conflict resolution through top-down adaptational pressures and functional expediencies relative to its role as a resource and opportunity in actor-centred processes.

The cases discussed in the empirical chapters permit the development of two lines of argument: on the substantive dimensions of...