Copy and paste: EU CSDP missions and the local context

In 2003, the European Union launched its first CSDP mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ever since, the EU has initiated 37 missions and operations, both military and civilian. These missions showed mixed success records. Various scholars suggested that the underlying reason for this is that the EU has copied and pasted the model that was used for the mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina onto different contexts where it was not suitable, which implied that the local context is crucial for mission success. This thesis therefore aimed to identify which factors within the local context determine mission success. The thesis focused specifically on civilian missions. Based on academic literature, four factors were identified, which were formulated into propositions. Whether these factors affected mission success was studies based on co-variational analysis. In doing so, four case studies were selected and analysed based on desk research and one interview. Based on the co-variational analysis, this study finds that the level of support for liberalism in the government and the presence of conflict were most influential with regard to mission success. A low level of economic development and the presence of internal security threats were less influential based on the co-variational analysis, but a more in-depth analysis of the missions showed that these factors did in fact affect mission success. Finally, the various factors in the local context are strongly interconnected and understanding of the local context in general is crucial for mission success.