03 July 2008

GPPi launches new research project on learning to build the rule of law

On 1 July 2008, GPPi launched a new research project on organizational learning in European civilian crisis management. Ten years after the foundation of the European Security and Defense Policy, the EU has developed into a leading player in multidimensional peace operations. ESDP crisis management missions put a special emphasis on police and judicial reform programs – reflecting the EU’s long-standing ambition to promote the rule of law. The growing number of ever more ambitious missions has presented the EU with serious challenges. Moreover, police and judicial reform missions are particularly complex, not only in terms of the achieving the desired transformations in third countries, but also in terms of coordinating a wide range of actors across all “pillars” of the EU. Already when launching the first ESDP police mission in 2003, the Council, therefore, stressed “the importance of the EU learning lessons from all ESDP operations”. However, we presently lack a comprehensive analysis of knowledge management, doctrine development and learning in the ESDP civilian crisis management apparatus.

The new research project will address this gap by providing a comprehensive picture of doctrine development and organizational learning in ESDP operations with regard to police and judicial reform. Conceptually, the project employs a multi-disciplinary framework for analyzing organizational learning in international bureaucracies. Empirically, the study will provide deeper insights into the EU civilian crisis management bureaucracy by means of an empirically rich process-tracing of (non-)learning.

The project is supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and will be completed by spring 2010. Products from the project include several GPPi Research Papers that will be available for download. In addition, findings will be disseminated through peer-review academic journals as well as in policy papers.

To view the project page, please click here.

For more information, please contact Thorsten Benner

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