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Into the ‘Heart of Darkness’ — EU's civilising mission in the DR Congo

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Abstract

‘Normative Power Europe’, a concept introduced by Ian Manners in 2002 in order to describe the international identity of the European Union (EU), remains a lasting point of reference for academic as well as political debates. However, many contributions to this discussion tend to essentialise notions of a collective identity where normative self-depictions are uncritically used as an explanation for the EU's external actions. The main challenge, thus, is to reconstruct how a self is invented in the conduct of foreign and security policies as a discourse of locating others and articulating insecurities. These discursive processes, I will argue, are highly productive of hierarchical relations and justification narratives overlooked by most research on the EU's security and defence policies. The results of a reconstruction of EU discourse on the European Security and Defence Policy missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo lead to the preliminary conclusion that the EU might increasingly be imagined as a ‘civilising power’, partly re-activating its imperial legacies of the 19th century.

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Notes

  1. The trope of a ‘heart of darkness’, Joseph Conrad's title of a novel about a journey of the seaman Marlow on the Congo river, is still extremely popular and widely used as a synonym for the DR Congo in the news or popular culture. It has also provoked a lively debate on racial stereotypes in literature after Chinua Achebe's inaugural address at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1975.

  2. Manuel Barroso, president of the Commission of the EU, was asked to reflect on five (academic) articles in an interview, one of these was Manners’ piece. Barroso's remarks primarily focus on EU's economic power, size and a somehow ‘hegemonic consensus’ between the European states: ‘[The] European powers count more now because we are now a much bigger player — we are now 27 countries, almost 500 million people, the most important trade bloc in the world, the most important donor of foreign aid — all of these things count … And if you look at the global issues, those discussed in the United Nations — such as climate change, environmental protection, human rights, demography — the positions of the European are setting a trend more or less in the direction of an operational compromise’, available at http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/newsletter/issue10/article_6085_en.htm (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  3. The notion has recently changed to Common Security and Defence Policy.

  4. There is a number of excellent introductions to the development of a Common Foreign Policy available, for example Bretherton and Vogler (2006); Hill and Smith (2005); and Jones (2007).

  5. The full text of the Amsterdam Treaty is available at http://www.eurotreaties.com/amsterdamtreaty.pdf (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  6. Figures are available at http://consilium.europa.eu/showPage.aspx?id=268&lang=EN (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  7. While European foreign policy mostly refers to a broad range of national and EU policies, the notion of EU foreign policies describes the multilayered system of EU's external relations. This includes different institutions (the Commission, the European Council, the High Representative for the CFSP, the upcoming External Action Service) as well as overlapping layers between the supranational, intergovernmental and national level.

  8. Also more policy-oriented contributions like Kagan's depiction of ‘Mars and Venus’ (2003) and Nye's ‘Soft Power’ (2004) refer to this traditional debate on EU's exceptional qualities.

  9. Hanns Maull (1990) has continuously refined the civilian power concept, arguing that such a state is genuinely interested in cooperation (as opposed to a practice of self-help), primarily makes use of non-military instruments in its foreign policy and is highly engaged in international organisations in order to civilise international relations. Maull's concept has highly influenced the debate on Germany and the question whether its orientation (even identity) has changed after the unification in 1991.

  10. Metaphors of a medieval epoch have been used repeatedly to depict the transformations of a European order (Ruggie 1993; Wæver 2000; Rennger 2000; Zielonka 2006, 2008).

  11. This is the so-called headline goal decision. The EU member states agreed to be able by 2003 to deploy and sustain forces capable of the full range of the Petersberg Tasks. This included forces to up to 50,000–60,000 persons, deployable within 60 days and sustainable for a year. For more details, see http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/Helsinki%20European%20Council-Presidency%20conclusions.pdf (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  12. The documents are available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/eeas/security-defence/eu-operations.aspx?lang=en (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  13. From 1960 to 1971 the official name of the former Belgian Congo was Republic of Congo. In 1971, Mobuto renamed the territory the Republic of Zaire. Since 1997 it has been known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The former French territory remains as a separate state (Congo-Brazzaville) officially named the Republic of the Congo.

  14. Lisbon Declaration — EU Africa Summit, 8–9, December 2007, Lisbon, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/er/97494.pdf (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  15. See the frequent reports published by the International Crisis Group, http://www.crisisgroup.org (accessed 4 August, 2011).

  16. For a short policy-oriented introduction see Mair (2003), Brittain and Conchiglia (2006), Martinelli (2006); on MONUC consult Autesserre (2009). Due to recent decisions, the mandate of MONUC has changed after statements on a possible end of the mission were launched (BBC News, 4 March, 2010; see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8548794.stm (accessed 10 May, 2010)).

  17. See Council Joint Action 2004/847/CFSP of 9 December, 2004 on the European Union Police Mission in Kinshasa (DRC) regarding the Integrated Police Unit (EUPOL ‘Kinshasa’). EUPOL KINSHASA comprised about 30 persons advising the Congolese on ‘international police best practices’.

  18. Gegout refers to 14 million euros provided by the Commission to support the establishment and operations of UPI (Gegout 2005: 440).

  19. More specifically, the posts were in the private office of the Minister for Defence, the combined general staff, the army general staff, the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, and the Joint Operational Committee (Council of the European Union 2005a). In 2008, the mission comprised 46 advisors, headed by French General Jean Paul Michel (Council of the European Union 2008).

  20. See Council Joint Action 2005/355/CFSP on the European Union Mission to Provide Advice and Assistance for Security Sector Reform in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The mission included experts from EU member states and EU institutions.

  21. See Council Joint Action 2006/319/CFSP on the European Union Military Mission in Support of the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) During the Election Process.

  22. Turkey and Switzerland also committed troops.

  23. The restriction of a small military presence to Kinshasa as well as the strict deadline of sending troops back by November 2006 was lively debated in Germany. Germany's Defence minister Franz Josef Jung already affirmed in September that the ‘German soldiers will be back at home for Christmas’ and disclaimed a timely expansion of the mission that was recommended by some French and Belgian politicians (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2006).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the journal's anonymous referees for their helpful comments and the editors for their suggestions on improving the article. For their critical feedback on earlier drafts of this article, I would like to thank Helena Grass, Gesa Riebe, Jana Krajewski, Gunther Hellmann, Benjamin Herborth, Axel Heck, Frank Gadinger, Ulrich Franke and Klaus Roscher. The responsibility for the remaining shortcomings, however, is mine. I acknowledge the Cluster of Excellence ‘Formation of Normative Orders’ at the Goethe-University Frankfurt a.M. for funding this research.

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Schlag, G. Into the ‘Heart of Darkness’ — EU's civilising mission in the DR Congo. J Int Relat Dev 15, 321–344 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2011.17

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