An ‘Impartial’ Force? Normative Ambiguity and Practice Change in UN Peace Operations

Abstract

ABSTRACTImpartiality is a core legitimating norm for United Nations peace operations. Yet beliefs about what that norm requires of UN personnel have shifted dramatically. In 2013, for example, the Security Council created an intervention brigade – composed of infantry battalions, special forces, and an artillery company – to ‘neutralize’ non-state armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to critics, these activities violate core peacekeeping norms, including impartiality. This criticism elicits a puzzling response from many UN officials. They downplay the novelty of new practices, insisting that they are still ‘impartial’. Where does this discursive pattern come from, and what does it tell us about the relationship between day-to-day practices and the norms that ostensibly guide UN peace operations? Drawing on evidence from the DRC, I argue that norms like impartiality may endure – and remain rhetorically powerful – without telling us much about how practices on the ground have evolved. Instead, insisting that new practices are impartial can be a way for UN personnel to stabilize a core part of their identity under conditions of normative ambiguity. It can also be a way of glossing over contestation and pre-empting concerns about partiality in UN peace operations.