Pratiques et usages de l'Europe dans le maintien de la paix : la coopération franco-irlandaise au Tchad
This dissertation is about European Union-led military operations and their effects on two issues: processes of Europeanization and the evolution of peacekeeping. For rational choice scholars, Europeanization reflects the preferences of Europe’s main powers, which impose those preferences on other states, especially when it comes to defence policies. On the opposite, constructivists argue that handling international crises collectively results in adaptations and a certain rapprochement of national ways to do things. To sort out this debate, this research puts forward and defends a sociological approach to EU military operations, which is inspired by the practice turn in international relations and usages of Europe in European studies. This approach emphasizes the context of interaction, actors’ social strategies, and the merits of an interpretive method grounded in actors’ experiences. The empirical demonstration rests upon a qualitative and comparative analysis of two most different cases: French and Irish actors during the military operation EUFOR Tchad/RCA, in which they got involved. The research concludes that Europeanization is not a linear and homogenous phenomenon, and that its shape mostly depends on the context and actors under scrutiny. At the political and decisional level (in Brussels), national logics prevail, and each actor tries to take advantage of its opportune resources (material, ideal, symbolic) in order to enforce its national preferences. However, the further one moves away from Brussels (towards the operation’s headquarters or the field), the more military actors – the main actors concerned with EU operations – develop common practices that come on top of their national singularities. The operational context of peacekeeping yields dynamics of socialization and learning, which themselves make common usages of military Europe possible. These usages make up the grounds of a “European” approach to peacekeeping, which is a hybrid combination of existing practices imported from other contexts (national, NATO, UN) and new, EU-specific practices. However, this Europeanization tends to remain mostly at the military’s level. It does not bring about convergence at the formal, political and decisional level, where national dynamics still prevail.
Usages France Tchad European Union Security Peacekeeping Europeanization Practices Ireland Chad