ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the main concepts that are employed in the book’s empirical analysis. It introduces readers to two literatures: one on the role of the European Union in conflict resolution, and the other on approaches to institutional design in deeply divided societies. It outlines the mechanisms through which the EU can have an impact on conflicts and considers existing literature on the EU’s conceptualisation of conflict. By bringing the literature on institutional design into these debates, the chapter argues, we can gain a better understanding of whether, in its engagement in conflict resolution, the EU pursues strategies of conflict regulation or conflict transformation. The former approach treats the interests and identities that lie at the heart of conflicts as relatively fixed and involves their institutional accommodation through institutional designs such as consociational power sharing. The latter approach instead treats identities as more amenable to change, and in policy terms is associated with institutional designs such as centripetalism and power dividing.
