Pelin YÜCEL
| Abstract: | The European Union, which is a pluralistic security community based on liberal democratic values, gives priority to human security while conducting its external actions. Accordingly, the Union’s way of securitization is in line with its normative security character by applying sanctions or restrictive measures. In addition, the EU’s security understanding has been shaped by both material factors influenced by the international system conditions and normative factors which its foundation is based and its identity is formed. This study aims to examine how the EU has addressed the humanitarian suffering in Gaza in the context of its two-pronged security approach, including normative and strategic aspects. Doing this, the study makes a comparison between Gaza and Ukraine by looking at how the EU addressed two different conflict zones. In normative sense, security community concept is used, and in strategic sense, regional security complex theory is used in the study to explain the securitization behavior of the EU towards the Gaza by comparing it with that towards the Ukraine. The study concludes that the EU has not securitized humanitarian suffering in Gaza the same with it did in Ukraine and, contradicted with its pluralistic security community character and normative actorness. It is also concluded that national prerogatives of the member states prevailed over common interests and common values of the EU in the Gaza case. |
| Keywords: | European Union, Gaza, Ukraine, securitization, pluralistic security community, regional security complex |