Navigating the stormy waters of legitimacy : An analysis of Operation Sophia and EU-Libya relations

Sammanfattning

The European Union has throughout recent decades launched multiple maritime operations with the objective to counter irregular migration across the Mediterranean Sea. In 2015, a new Common Security and Defence Policy-mission was launched through agreements between the Union and the Libyan state. Against the civil society’s heavy criticism of Operation Sophia, this thesis is interested in how the mission was legitimatized, exploring how legitimacy was thought about in two diverging EU-institutions: the Council of the European Union and the European External Action Service. The thesis understand legitimacy as a concept contingent on institutionalized norms that transpire within demarcated ‘communities’, building on the Weberian notion of multiple legitimacies. And in line with the theoretical framework of Bernstein, this thesis exclusively examine how norms of sovereignty, economy and democracy influence criteria’s of legitimacy. The methodological approach constitutes a discourse analysis of Operation Sophia’s policy framework, building on Bacchi’s WPR-methodology. The thesis demonstrate that the Council of the European Union primarily relied on norms connected to public international law while the European External Action Service rather established legitimacy through norms of democracy.