Cross-Border Cooperation as Conflict Transformation: Promises and Limitations in EU Peacebuilding

Has European integration helped to build peace in Europe and its neighbourhood? The book addresses this question through theoretically and empirically informed case studies that explore the successes of, and the challenges to EU cross-border cooperation as a tool for conflict transformation.

Conceptually, the contributors link the question of transforming conflict to changing understandings of borders and bordering. Empirically, the contributions represent case studies of practices and discourses of EU-sponsored cross-border cooperation, and challenges to it. The case studies encompass the multiple geographical perspectives of the EU internal boundaries, its (sometimes disputed) external borders, and borders involving third countries. From a thematic point of view, the collection focuses on the intersection of two levels at which bordering processes unfold and are enacted: the level of governance, devolution and international intervention and that of grass roots or civil society efforts, including cultural cooperation and artistic production. The collection thus offers a kaleidoscopic view of border politics and conflict that zooms in and out of the EU frontiers and their geopolitics of peacebuilding, security and cooperation.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Geopolitics.

Maria-Adriana Deiana is a lecturer in International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Her research deploys feminist and other critical IR perspectives to examine the interrelated issues of war, peace and security. Her publications include Gender and Citizenship: Promises of Peace in Post-Dayton Bosnia & Herzegovina (2018).

Milena Komarova is a sociologist and UK in a Changing Europe Initiative Research Fellow, based at the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Her work intersects the fields of border, conflict and urban studies, including Brexit and the Irish border.

Cathal McCall is a professor of European Politics and Borders. He has published widely on the theme of European Union cross-border cooperation and conflict transformation, including The European Union and Peacebuilding: The Cross-Border Dimension (2014).