The European Union and Practices of Governing Space and Population in Contested States: Insights from EUPOL COPPS in Palestine

Abstract

This paper examines the EU Police Mission in the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) with a focus on its effects on everyday police work on the ground. The main argument is that the mission illustrates the ways in which its training and advisory activities work to foster logics and practices that feed into and reproduce the borders that have over the years been imposed, primarily through Israeli security practices. Operating under conditions of contested statehood, EUPOL COPPS promotes Palestinian policing activities based on particular spatial logics and actions as to the governance of the Palestinian population. The article presents new empirical material collected through interviews and document analysis. As such, it aims to build bridges between the literature on critical border studies, EU external relations, the EU’s role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as well as the literature on the EU police missions in conflict and post-conflict missions by emphasising their spatial dimension.