A number of regional organisations have ambitions and/or capacities to be involved in peace and security issues. UNU-CRIS is interested in analysing how different regional organisations are contributing to security regionalism and how they interact with each other and with the multilateral security system. At present attention goes primarily to Africa.

1. Why African regional organisations intervene in conflicts?

What leads African regional and sub-regional organizations to intervene military in armed conflicts? Is the decision-making process only led by a righteous intention to prevent and resolve conflicts or, instead, one may find unofficial triggers for the interventions? It is almost common sense to say that international policies are enveloped by a cloud of rhetorical statements that camouflages the true intentions of policymakers. This project will highlight this ambivalence by pinpointing the interests and the pressures involved in a country’s decision to support financially and militarily an intervention. More info

2. Changing Multilateralism: The European Union as a global-regional  actor in security and peace (EU-GRASP)

EU-GRASP proposes to study the role of the EU in peace and security as a regional actor with global aspirations in a context of challenged and changing multilateralism. By studying this aspect of the evolving EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU-GRASP aims to answer a number of questions on EU’s presence, actorness and capabilities in regional and global security.

This research project will be undertaken through a conceptual analysis but also through the undertaking of case-studies on an agreed number of security issues and through exercises of foresight, where academia and stakeholders will be able to explore scenarios of future roles of the EU in global and regional security matters. In doing so, EU-GRASP will focus on six security issues that are high on the EU-agenda: regional conflict, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, energy security and climate change; human rights and migration. The research will be policy oriented and include a foresight dimension.

More information on the EU-GRASP website 

Contact persons: Francis Baert and Emmanuel Fanta