Global Public Policy Institute
Reinhardtstraße 15
10117 Berlin
Germany
Phone +49 30 275 959 75-0
Fax +49 30 275 959 75-900
E-Mail gppi@gppi.net

Recent Publications

Raphael Bossong (2009)

European Voice, 17 December 2009

Thorsten Benner, Stephan Mergenthaler, Philipp Rotmann (2009)

Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 16:2, pp. 203-236

Events

15-18 February 2009

50th International Studies Association Annual Convention, New York

Thorsten Benner and Raphael Bossong (panelists) [More...]

18-19 June 2009

Workshop, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Thorsten Benner and Raphael Bossong (presentation on: Organisation Theory and Management of Civilian ESDP missions) [More...]

Project outputs

GPPi Reserach papers

Policy papers

Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed academic journals

Funders

Learning to Build the Rule of Law?

The Evolution of Police and Judicial Reform in EU Peace Operations

July 2008 - June 2010

Project Context

In less than 10 years after the birth of 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. As the High Representative Javier Solana pointed out, operations needed to be established “even before our doctrines and structures had caught up completely.” 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 stressed “the importance of the EU learning lessons from all ESDP operations”. However, we currently lack a comprehensive analysis of knowledge management, doctrine development and learning in the ESDP civilian crisis management apparatus.  

Project Objectives

Accordingly, the two-year research project “Learning to Build the Rule of Law” seeks to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive picture of doctrine development and organizational learning in ESDP operations with regard to police and judicial reform. The project addresses the following questions: How have the EU’s doctrines, guidelines and the institutions for knowledge management on police and judicial reform operations evolved? How has the EU (not) learned from past experience and new knowledge? Which factors facilitate or hinder organizational learning?

Conceptually, the project employs a multi-disciplinary framework for analyzing organizational learning in international bureaucracies. The project builds on GPPi’s previous work on organizational learning in the UN peace operations apparatus while tailoring its approach to the special features of the EU, in cooperation with the new GPPi research project on the emergence of a European strategic culture. 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. This will be based on in-depth research in both Brussels and theatres of operation, particularly in the Balkans. In addition, the project will build on GPPi’s established networks of academics and practitioners in the area of global peace operations.