"Here is your mission, now own it!" The rhetoric and practice of local ownership in EU interventions

One of the core principles of EU interventions under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has been local ownership. While the EU takes pride in fully respecting this principle, the existing research suggests that the implementation has been far from smooth. However, we still know very little how this principle is conceptualised and operationalised, let alone why its implementation has been so difficult. Drawing on document analysis and 27 in-depth interviews, the article makes 3 arguments. First, ownership is increasingly construed in the EU policy rhetoric as a middle ground between imposition and restraint. Second, in practice, ownership is operationalised as an externally driven, top-down endeavour, resulting in the low degree of local participation. Third, in addition to the obstacles normally faced by other peace-builders, the EU's efforts to implement ownership are constrained by the politics and policy-making of CSDP. The arguments are illustrated in a case study of the European Union Mission on Regional Maritime Capacity Building in the Horn of Africa (EUCAP Nestor)

Military business and the business of the military

Contrary to dominant approaches that locate the causes for military entrepreneurialism in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo predominantly in criminal military elites, this article highlights the importance of the Congolese military’s (FARDC) civilian context for understanding military revenue-generation. It analyses how the latter is shaped by structures of domination, signification and legitimisation that drive and are driven by the FARDC’s governance, private protection and security practices. It argues that these practices contribute to bestowing a degree of legitimacy on both the FARDC’s position of power and some of its revenue-generation activities. Furthermore, by emphasising that the FARDC’s regulatory and protection practices are partly the product of popular demands and the routine actions of civilians, the article contends that the causes of military revenue-generation are co-located in the military’s civilian environment. In this manner, it offers a more nuanced conceptualisation of military entrepreneurialism, thus opening up new perspectives on policy interventions in this area