Authors: Malte Brosig (University of the Witwatersrand) and John Karlsrud (Norwegian Institute for International Affairs)

Abstract: The response to armed conflict is undergoing a fundamental transformation. For long it has been mission-based in which countries under the administrative leadership of the UN and/or regional organization pool resources and deploy multinational missions with the aim of stabilizing countries and building sustainable peace. This model is in decline if not phasing out. It is increasingly supplanted by ad hoc coalitions appearing as a more flexible instruments at times of multilateralism in crisis. This paper explores the demise of mission-based conflict resolution using a rational institutionalist perspective building on search and surge costs. It focusses explicitly on the EU as one of the traditional supporters of mission-based solutions and explores how the EU is positioning itself between the need to develop more agile and flexible instruments for conflict resolution while not undermining already challenged multilateral organizations. Empirically the paper focuses on the decline of peacekeeping missions and the establishment of the European Peace Facility (EPF) as the EU’s most important instrument for conflict response.