The European foreign policy and non-state armed groups

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1648980 (Table of Contents)

How does the EU really approach the NSAGs, the insurgent groups in particular? Does normative or geopolitical concerns trump over shaping EU’s relations with these entities? This thesis aims to understand the rebel organization related factors that the EU takes into account in determining its stance towards an insurgent group. I develop a theoretical foundation for my study to demonstrate why the EU supports some NSGAs while keeping some at its arm’s length. In doing so, I build a taxonomy whereby such autonomous political entities are categorized with respect to (a) their level of legitimacy in the respective population’ eyes, (b) the level of power (and the strength of their organization). These organizations can wield across the areas they claim a rule on. To explore the behavioral pattern of the EU, the analysis is conducted through a comparative case study on the MILF in Philippines, which represents the group with high legitimacy but high organizational strength, the LTTE in Sri Lanka which represents the group with low legitimacy and high organizational strength and the Janjaweed in Sudan representing the group with low level of legitimacy and low level of organizational stregnth . The results show that foreign policy variation across the insurgents can be explained to a great extent by the characteristics of the insurgent groups and the instruments used in addressing their proto-diplomatic activities are both driven by normative and interests-based approach.