City Research Online

Abstract

Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) police/rule of law missions in the Western Balkans are increasingly guided by externally imposed normative agendas that respond primarily to EU internal security needs rather than functional imperatives or local realities. In line with these needs, EU police reform efforts tend to prioritise effectiveness and crime fighting over longer- term democratic policing and good governance reforms. In practice this means that police reform initiatives are technocratically oriented, yet value ridden fitting EU security concerns and needs. As a result, the police reform process can be—and often is—disconnected from the political and socio-economic reforms necessary for long-term stability and sustainable peace. Police assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been shaped by a determined albeit questionable focus on organised crime and corruption. The focus of EU police reform in Macedonia on primarily crime-fighting aspects of policing has compromised the functioning of the Macedonian police. Similarly, the politics of (non-)recognition of Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence and the intrusiveness of EULEX Kosovo's executive mandate contravene meeting local challenges.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Conflict, Security and Development on 24/10/11, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14678802.2011.614127
Subjects:	J Political Science > JZ International relations
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > International Politics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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