Border Conflicts and European Integration
Pierre Testard
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Dans l’esprit de ses fondateurs, l’Union Européenne apparaissait comme le meilleur garant de la paix après un demi-siècle de guerres dévastatrices. C’est cette assimilation de l’Europe et de l’idée de paix que l’ouvrage collectif, The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association, tente de mettre en question. Ecrit par des spécialistes européens de science politique, de relations internationales et d’anthropologie sociale, il a pour but d’élaborer un modèle conceptuel rendant compte des conflits frontaliers, du rôle d’acteurs locaux dans ces conflits, et de l’influence de l’Union Européenne dans leur résolution. Ainsi, le cas de l’Irlande du Nord donne un aperçu de l’ambivalence du pouvoir des institutions européennes sur les partis engagés dans un conflit, selon le degré d’intensité des tensions. Qu’elles contribuent à renforcer ou à apaiser les crises frontalières, le pouvoir de persuasion des instances de l’UE dépend avant tout de l’argument tout-puissant d’une éventuelle intégration dans l’Union. Cet ouvrage invite donc à penser une définition de l’Europe qui dépasse les cadres existants de communication et fonde un espace public européen déliée de sentiments nationaux.
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Europe means peace. In the minds of its founders, the European Union assured that havoc and turmoil would never reappear on a continent devastated by the Second World War. The founding and longstanding assumption underlying European construction is that providing a common political and economic framework for nation-states with different legacies must put an end to their divisions. If France and Germany, the ‘hereditary enemies’, could cooperate to promote peace to the extent of institutionalising it, this meant that, eventually, all the peoples longing for serene relationships with their neighbours could join the community. Hence, the notions of integration and peace have been assimilated.
In the collective work, The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association, several political scientists, social anthropologists and specialists in International Relations from across Europe have merged their efforts to provide us with a theoretical reflection on the relation between border conflicts, the actors involved in these conflicts, and the European Union as the framework for integration and association. [i]Indeed, border conflicts have appeared or perpetuated themselves in the twentieth century with the emergence of nations as “self-defined modern political communities seeking their own political organisation as a state within its own territory”[ii]. Seeking for conformity between a territory and a nation can provoke frictions linked to the borders of this territory. A conflict is understood to this regard as a discursive articulation of mutual incompatibilities. It is not limited to physical violence, which is only one form or one sequence of a conflict. Conflicts are essentially the communication of a divergence and the possibility of the repetition of negative responses between two parties.
The prime purpose of this work is to challenge the idea usually enhanced by representatives of the European Union themselves that the European Union’s actions as a ‘perturbator’ in border conflicts necessarily lead to positive results. It can also engender a ‘securitisation’ of opposing parties and a delegitimising of a constructive dialogue. The case studies include Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Greece/ Turkey, Russia/ Europe’s North and even Israel/ Palestine. In their presentation, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter base their conceptual analysis of border conflict patterns on the process model of social conflicts established by Heinz Messmer[iii]. It includes four stages:
- Conflict episodes: isolated formulations of incompatibilities related to a particular issue, often contained.
- Issue conflicts: limited to quarrels about the issue as such.
- Identity conflicts: explicitly personalised disaccords, with self-referential perceptions of the conflict and rejection of opposing arguments of the Other precisely because they come from this Other.
- Subordination conflicts, in which the Other has to be subordinated, or even exterminated, given that a systematic use of force is acceptable.
In this framework, the EU’s (European Union) place has to be defined. It is not a unified actor and its capacity to elaborate a unique discourse is fundamental in the success of its enterprises. This capacity as a ‘perturbator’ of a conflict is not only limited to integration because it influences countries and local actors beyond the scope of the Union. The editors provide four paths for EU initiatives:
- The compulsory impact compels the actors through mechanisms of integration and association to change their policies towards conciliation and away from ‘securitisation.’ It is effective when the carrots and sticks presented by the EU are associated with accession negotiations for at least one party- such as Greece in the 1970s, or Cyprus in the 2000s. It is limited nevertheless to short-term effects because the perspective of entering the EU encourages parties to respond to pressures for strategic reasons, without durably putting an end to ‘securitisation.’
- The enabling impact relies on specific actors within opposing parties to link their political agendas with the EU. Again integration is put forward to initiate ‘desecuritising’ moves. It has much longer term effects. The supranational reference to the EU gives credit to decisions which diminish tensions. However, the image of the EU was reversed into negative terms as long as it was seen as siding with the opposing party. Turkey had such a viewpoint before the 1999 Helsinki Summit rendered possible the perspective of membership.
- The connective impact encourages contacts between conflict parties, especially at a local level, through the financial support of common activities. However, it depends on conditions such as prior ‘desecuritisation’ of relations on a wide societal level. Such became the case in Ireland, given that both parties were Union members and that the EU PEACE funds had an enhanced legitimacy. [iv]
- The constructive impact aims at changing “underlying identity-scripts” of conflict parties and their discursive references[v]. It is surely the most powerful yet demanding pathway because it implies a profound transformation of identities. In heavily ‘securitised’ conflicts, it can have divisive effects, because each party will use the EU to undermine the adverse identity construction. Europe becomes either a menace or an expectation. In the latter case, a positive relationship between institutions can make the confluence of identities easier. A good example was the identity changes in Northern Cyprus which led to the rewriting of history textbooks of Turkish-Cypriot high schools in 2004.
These useful models provide a conceptual basis for the relation between the EU as an influential participant in conflicts, and the degrees that the latter recover. However, they do not outline the symbolic power vested in a border by collective mentalities. Accordingly, one can regret that Malcolm Anderson’s idea of the border as the “mytho-moteur of a whole society” is only alluded to[vi]. Drawing on the notion of the constructive impact, it seems possible to revise the association of a self-identification process of a nation with spatial limitations. There lies in the definition of a European sense of identity a possibility of linking local actors with a definition of an open and unlimited sense of community. This framework should not be limited to the institutional and political influence of the European Union as an institution but should also include the development of cultural and artistic exchanges. Integration cannot imply the denial of one’s own culture but should involve the promotion of the Other’s culture, in its various forms.
The Case of Northern Ireland[vii]:
The Irish conflict is fundamentally crystallised upon a border. The latter’s development embodied the differences in the historical evolution of British and Irish nationalisms. After the 1920 Government of Ireland Act established Northern Ireland in the six north-eastern counties of the island, the border progressively symbolised separation, on all economic, cultural, political and ideological levels. For fifty years, the disagreements between Unionists and nationalists formed an issue conflict. It evolved into a subordination conflict when the Irish government’s response to the communal dissent thriving in the streets of the North was to deploy the army along the southern side of the border in August 1969. Within a week, British troops were sent to the North.
This brief historical reminder gives one a glimpse of the extraordinary escalation of border conflicts from one stage to another. The settlement of this crisis was only attained when both British and Irish governments together decided to include extremists in the negotiations. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement relied on conjunction of the ‘desecuritisation’ of the situation and of its increasing politicisation. The force of words gained credit as the deployment of force proved extraneous. Hence, by uniting government officials, moderate political parties and extremist political parties into two clearly delineated blocs, the British/ Unionist/ loyalist bloc, and the Irish/ nationalist/ republican bloc, the conflict was reduced to identities and the search for consensus. Effectively, the distrust focused on state borders was displaced to internal differences and debates.
Furthermore, in this conflict, the actual achievement of the EU consisted in depoliticising cross-border cooperation and identities. A language of surpassing differences undermined nationalist speeches, encouraged local peace-building efforts and voluntary work innovations. The more the conflict was related to Europe, the more factors previously reinforcing the conflict became a source of cooperation across borders. This does not mean that the reconstruction of identities led to a so-called ‘Europeanisation’ and a diminution of identity differences. Nonetheless, the latter ceased to be invoked as the structural basis of the relations between the Northern Irish and the Irish. The EU’s impact was to favour a higher understanding and toleration despite nationalism. In this sense, the symbolic pregnancy of the border was simply transferred to non-political norms of identification. The border was still impermeable to national feelings but feelings of solidarity dribbled through it.
The confrontation of the concepts of EU impacts and specific conflict cases must help one envision the ambivalence of integration and association on border conflicts. It is when individual identities of each social group are ‘securitised’ to a great extent that political and societal relations become contradictory. This results in actual “physical segregations”- green lines, state boundaries, EU external boundaries- or “territorial fractures”- checkpoints, fences, ‘invisible’ borders within neighbourhoods[viii]. In turn, the way external observers see the conflict is shaped by the discursive processes put together by opposed groups. In this sense, the EU is not a third party intervening from a neutral point of view. Its’ initiatives depend very much on its’ relations with the conflict parties, whether they are members of the EU, seek to be, or are only associated to it.
Indeed, the effectiveness of the EU seems to rely on the symbolic and institutional power conferred upon it. If Europe is to be seen as a ‘force for good’ not only by its representatives and administrators but also by its citizens, this power must be understood.[ix] The constructive impact of the EU as it is theorised here is useful insofar as it blurs and underpins the notion of border as a contriving force. Nonetheless, the scheme elaborated in this work clearly puts forward the dependence of successful initiatives for peace in the framework of European integration on economic incentives and concessions. To overcome the system of carrots and sticks, it seems essential that the EU ceases to appear simply as a means to achieve economic prosperity.
On a broader scale, the development in the XXth century of the idea of nation-state in which a delineated territory must belong to a people united by national feeling has been the source of spatial and cultural fragmentations. The border has become even more so the embodiment of national identities which exclude more than they include. The recent 2008 Russo-Georgian War has been yet another example of a direct confrontation between the principles of self-determination and of the intangibility of borders. As the Russians endeavoured to protect South Ossetia’s right of independence which Georgia does not recognise, the Ossetian territory became the landmark of the conflict. Subsequently, it is fundamental for Europe to think through its’ principles beyond the sterile and damaging contradiction between self-determination and national sovereignty.
Thus, the various articles of The European Union and Border Conflicts provide a useful conceptual insight on the possibilities and pitfalls of European integration. Fruitful cooperation can result from the disruptive work undertaken by European institutions such as the Council and the Parliament in border conflicts. Nevertheless, it would be far-fetched to conclude that the EU’s actions guarantee that integration and peace will go hand in hand in the future simply because they find short-term remedies to durable conflicts. The efficiency of the EU is due to a great extent to its ability to depoliticise issues and to put into relief compatibilities between national feelings and a European framework for cooperation. To those who stigmatise the absence of a European public sphere, one can oppose this type of reflection on the actual potency of the EU in resolving conflicts. As the European elections and the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon come near, the academic world has a pedagogical role to fulfil in explaining the powers, objectives and cultures of Europe. This may disband the fantasised and demagogic perceptions of the EU as a disembodied and bureaucratic magma remote from the people. It may also offer ways of thinking a common cultural European background in rupture with a top-down vision of Europe and with a backlash of national sentiments.
[i] The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association, edited by Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008
[ii] Idem, ‘Introduction’, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter , p.7
[iii] Heinz Messmer, Der Soliaze Konflikt. Kommunikative Emergenz und systemische Reproduktion, Lucius& Lucius, Stuttgart, 2003, in Idem, ‘The Transformative Power of Integration: conceptualising border conflicts’, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter , pp.14-20.
[iv] Malcolm Anderson, Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, in Idem, p.21
[v] Idem, pp.28-29
[vi] Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, in Ireland
[vii] Idem, ‘The Influence of the EU towards conflict transformation on the island of Ireland’, Katy Hayward and Antje Wiener, pp.33-63
[viii] Idem, ‘Conclusion’, Stephan Stetter, Mathias Albert and Thomas Diez, p.224
[ix] Idem, ‘The EU as a ‘force for good’ in border conflict cases?’, Michelle Pace, pp.203-219
Europe means peace. In the minds of its founders, the European Union assured that havoc and turmoil would never reappear on a continent devastated by the Second World War. The founding and longstanding assumption underlying European construction is that providing a common political and economic framework for nation-states with different legacies must put an end to their divisions. If France and Germany, the ‘hereditary enemies’, could cooperate to promote peace to the extent of institutionalising it, this meant that, eventually, all the peoples longing for serene relationships with their neighbours could join the community. Hence, the notions of integration and peace have been assimilated.
In the collective work, The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association, several political scientists, social anthropologists and specialists in International Relations from across Europe have merged their efforts to provide us with a theoretical reflection on the relation between border conflicts, the actors involved in these conflicts, and the European Union as the framework for integration and association. [i]Indeed, border conflicts have appeared or perpetuated themselves in the twentieth century with the emergence of nations as “self-defined modern political communities seeking their own political organisation as a state within its own territory”[ii]. Seeking for conformity between a territory and a nation can provoke frictions linked to the borders of this territory. A conflict is understood to this regard as a discursive articulation of mutual incompatibilities. It is not limited to physical violence, which is only one form or one sequence of a conflict. Conflicts are essentially the communication of a divergence and the possibility of the repetition of negative responses between two parties.
The prime purpose of this work is to challenge the idea usually enhanced by representatives of the European Union themselves that the European Union’s actions as a ‘perturbator’ in border conflicts necessarily lead to positive results. It can also engender a ‘securitisation’ of opposing parties and a delegitimising of a constructive dialogue. The case studies include Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Greece/ Turkey, Russia/ Europe’s North and even Israel/ Palestine. In their presentation, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter base their conceptual analysis of border conflict patterns on the process model of social conflicts established by Heinz Messmer[iii]. It includes four stages:
- Conflict episodes: isolated formulations of incompatibilities related to a particular issue, often contained.
- Issue conflicts: limited to quarrels about the issue as such.
- Identity conflicts: explicitly personalised disaccords, with self-referential perceptions of the conflict and rejection of opposing arguments of the Other precisely because they come from this Other.
- Subordination conflicts, in which the Other has to be subordinated, or even exterminated, given that a systematic use of force is acceptable.
In this framework, the EU’s (European Union) place has to be defined. It is not a unified actor and its capacity to elaborate a unique discourse is fundamental in the success of its enterprises. This capacity as a ‘perturbator’ of a conflict is not only limited to integration because it influences countries and local actors beyond the scope of the Union. The editors provide four paths for EU initiatives:
- The compulsory impact compels the actors through mechanisms of integration and association to change their policies towards conciliation and away from ‘securitisation.’ It is effective when the carrots and sticks presented by the EU are associated with accession negotiations for at least one party- such as Greece in the 1970s, or Cyprus in the 2000s. It is limited nevertheless to short-term effects because the perspective of entering the EU encourages parties to respond to pressures for strategic reasons, without durably putting an end to ‘securitisation.’
- The enabling impact relies on specific actors within opposing parties to link their political agendas with the EU. Again integration is put forward to initiate ‘desecuritising’ moves. It has much longer term effects. The supranational reference to the EU gives credit to decisions which diminish tensions. However, the image of the EU was reversed into negative terms as long as it was seen as siding with the opposing party. Turkey had such a viewpoint before the 1999 Helsinki Summit rendered possible the perspective of membership.
- The connective impact encourages contacts between conflict parties, especially at a local level, through the financial support of common activities. However, it depends on conditions such as prior ‘desecuritisation’ of relations on a wide societal level. Such became the case in Ireland, given that both parties were Union members and that the EU PEACE funds had an enhanced legitimacy. [iv]
- The constructive impact aims at changing “underlying identity-scripts” of conflict parties and their discursive references[v]. It is surely the most powerful yet demanding pathway because it implies a profound transformation of identities. In heavily ‘securitised’ conflicts, it can have divisive effects, because each party will use the EU to undermine the adverse identity construction. Europe becomes either a menace or an expectation. In the latter case, a positive relationship between institutions can make the confluence of identities easier. A good example was the identity changes in Northern Cyprus which led to the rewriting of history textbooks of Turkish-Cypriot high schools in 2004.
These useful models provide a conceptual basis for the relation between the EU as an influential participant in conflicts, and the degrees that the latter recover. However, they do not outline the symbolic power vested in a border by collective mentalities. Accordingly, one can regret that Malcolm Anderson’s idea of the border as the “mytho-moteur of a whole society” is only alluded to[vi]. Drawing on the notion of the constructive impact, it seems possible to revise the association of a self-identification process of a nation with spatial limitations. There lies in the definition of a European sense of identity a possibility of linking local actors with a definition of an open and unlimited sense of community. This framework should not be limited to the institutional and political influence of the European Union as an institution but should also include the development of cultural and artistic exchanges. Integration cannot imply the denial of one’s own culture but should involve the promotion of the Other’s culture, in its various forms.
The Case of Northern Ireland[vii]:
The Irish conflict is fundamentally crystallised upon a border. The latter’s development embodied the differences in the historical evolution of British and Irish nationalisms. After the 1920 Government of Ireland Act established Northern Ireland in the six north-eastern counties of the island, the border progressively symbolised separation, on all economic, cultural, political and ideological levels. For fifty years, the disagreements between Unionists and nationalists formed an issue conflict. It evolved into a subordination conflict when the Irish government’s response to the communal dissent thriving in the streets of the North was to deploy the army along the southern side of the border in August 1969. Within a week, British troops were sent to the North.
This brief historical reminder gives one a glimpse of the extraordinary escalation of border conflicts from one stage to another. The settlement of this crisis was only attained when both British and Irish governments together decided to include extremists in the negotiations. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement relied on conjunction of the ‘desecuritisation’ of the situation and of its increasing politicisation. The force of words gained credit as the deployment of force proved extraneous. Hence, by uniting government officials, moderate political parties and extremist political parties into two clearly delineated blocs, the British/ Unionist/ loyalist bloc, and the Irish/ nationalist/ republican bloc, the conflict was reduced to identities and the search for consensus. Effectively, the distrust focused on state borders was displaced to internal differences and debates.
Furthermore, in this conflict, the actual achievement of the EU consisted in depoliticising cross-border cooperation and identities. A language of surpassing differences undermined nationalist speeches, encouraged local peace-building efforts and voluntary work innovations. The more the conflict was related to Europe, the more factors previously reinforcing the conflict became a source of cooperation across borders. This does not mean that the reconstruction of identities led to a so-called ‘Europeanisation’ and a diminution of identity differences. Nonetheless, the latter ceased to be invoked as the structural basis of the relations between the Northern Irish and the Irish. The EU’s impact was to favour a higher understanding and toleration despite nationalism. In this sense, the symbolic pregnancy of the border was simply transferred to non-political norms of identification. The border was still impermeable to national feelings but feelings of solidarity dribbled through it.
The confrontation of the concepts of EU impacts and specific conflict cases must help one envision the ambivalence of integration and association on border conflicts. It is when individual identities of each social group are ‘securitised’ to a great extent that political and societal relations become contradictory. This results in actual “physical segregations”- green lines, state boundaries, EU external boundaries- or “territorial fractures”- checkpoints, fences, ‘invisible’ borders within neighbourhoods[viii]. In turn, the way external observers see the conflict is shaped by the discursive processes put together by opposed groups. In this sense, the EU is not a third party intervening from a neutral point of view. Its’ initiatives depend very much on its’ relations with the conflict parties, whether they are members of the EU, seek to be, or are only associated to it.
Indeed, the effectiveness of the EU seems to rely on the symbolic and institutional power conferred upon it. If Europe is to be seen as a ‘force for good’ not only by its representatives and administrators but also by its citizens, this power must be understood.[ix] The constructive impact of the EU as it is theorised here is useful insofar as it blurs and underpins the notion of border as a contriving force. Nonetheless, the scheme elaborated in this work clearly puts forward the dependence of successful initiatives for peace in the framework of European integration on economic incentives and concessions. To overcome the system of carrots and sticks, it seems essential that the EU ceases to appear simply as a means to achieve economic prosperity.
On a broader scale, the development in the XXth century of the idea of nation-state in which a delineated territory must belong to a people united by national feeling has been the source of spatial and cultural fragmentations. The border has become even more so the embodiment of national identities which exclude more than they include. The recent 2008 Russo-Georgian War has been yet another example of a direct confrontation between the principles of self-determination and of the intangibility of borders. As the Russians endeavoured to protect South Ossetia’s right of independence which Georgia does not recognise, the Ossetian territory became the landmark of the conflict. Subsequently, it is fundamental for Europe to think through its’ principles beyond the sterile and damaging contradiction between self-determination and national sovereignty.
Thus, the various articles of The European Union and Border Conflicts provide a useful conceptual insight on the possibilities and pitfalls of European integration. Fruitful cooperation can result from the disruptive work undertaken by European institutions such as the Council and the Parliament in border conflicts. Nevertheless, it would be far-fetched to conclude that the EU’s actions guarantee that integration and peace will go hand in hand in the future simply because they find short-term remedies to durable conflicts. The efficiency of the EU is due to a great extent to its ability to depoliticise issues and to put into relief compatibilities between national feelings and a European framework for cooperation. To those who stigmatise the absence of a European public sphere, one can oppose this type of reflection on the actual potency of the EU in resolving conflicts. As the European elections and the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon come near, the academic world has a pedagogical role to fulfil in explaining the powers, objectives and cultures of Europe. This may disband the fantasised and demagogic perceptions of the EU as a disembodied and bureaucratic magma remote from the people. It may also offer ways of thinking a common cultural European background in rupture with a top-down vision of Europe and with a backlash of national sentiments.
[i] The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association, edited by Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008
[ii] Idem, ‘Introduction’, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter , p.7
[iii] Heinz Messmer, Der Soliaze Konflikt. Kommunikative Emergenz und systemische Reproduktion, Lucius& Lucius, Stuttgart, 2003, in Idem, ‘The Transformative Power of Integration: conceptualising border conflicts’, Thomas Diez, Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter , pp.14-20.
[iv] Malcolm Anderson, Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, in Idem, p.21
[v] Idem, pp.28-29
[vi] Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, in Ireland
[vii] Idem, ‘The Influence of the EU towards conflict transformation on the island of Ireland’, Katy Hayward and Antje Wiener, pp.33-63
[viii] Idem, ‘Conclusion’, Stephan Stetter, Mathias Albert and Thomas Diez, p.224
[ix] Idem, ‘The EU as a ‘force for good’ in border conflict cases?’, Michelle Pace, pp.203-219