ABSTRACT
The European Union has been a key crisis managment actor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mobilising a broad array of civilian and military instruments to support peace and stabilisation efforts. Human security precepts have framed much of the EU’s engagement in the DRC, although it has not been overtly articulated as such in EU discourse and practice. However, the extent to which EU actions have effectively contributed to human security in the DRC, or even stability and security more broadly, is mixed and has tended to produce short-term effects rather than laying the foundations for sustainable change. We put forward three interrelated reasons for this: the EU’s flawed assumptions about institution-building as a vehicle for change, the EU’s ambivalent and progressively waning role as a diplomatic actor, and domestic resistance to change. The DRC experience highlights some of the challenges the EU faces when promoting societal and political transformation in contexts where predatory modes of governance and persistent insecurity dominate.
