Resumen de La participació de la Unió Europea i de l'Índia en la governança dela seguretat: Compliment, localització i contestació en les operacions de pau
This article-based doctoral dissertation analyses the EU’s and India’s approach to global security governance through the prism of peace operations. Although approaches to peace operations and norms related to this endeavour have been studied in the past, the focus of the literature had been on discursive contestation in UN debates and has underexplored behavioural contestation, particularly at the level of practitioners both in the training of peacekeepers and in the missions. To fill this gap, the dissertation builds upon a nascent field in the literature, which has explored the possibility to combine the literature on norms with that of the practice theoretical turn. Moreover, the literature has overlooked the contribution of the Global South in shaping norms in peace operations. To address this shortcoming of the literature, the study offers an exploration into India’s understanding of – and contribution to international norms and practices, hitherto underexplored. Overall, the dissertation is guided by two core research questions: What are the norms and practices India and the EU are supporting in peace operations? Why do the EU and India comply, localise, and contest existing norms and practices in peace operations and which form does this contestation take? These research questions are answered in the three individual publications of the dissertation on training, local ownership, and gender mainstreaming. Building on data collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, the dissertation finds that the EU and India’s approaches to peace operations are not as divergent as the literature has previously predicted. Moreover, that India has substantially contributed to normative debates in peace operations and has indeed acted as a norm entrepreneur. Finally, that to understand an actor’s approach to peace operations, it is crucial to account for the implementation stage of international norms and practices at which the background knowledge of practitioners plays an important role.
In sum, the study informs our empirical understanding of the different approaches that actors bring to the table in their conduct of UN peace operations. This understanding is crucial for UN peace operations to remain an effective instrument of global security governance. Moreover, it informs our theoretical understanding of peace operations by introducing a conceptual framework combing the literature on norm compliance, localisation, contestation, and practice theory.
