Peacebuilding in UN Peacekeeping Exit Strategies: Organized Hypocrisy and Institutional Reform

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between the concept of ‘organized hypocrisy’ and institutional reform in UN peacekeeping. It first demonstrates how the organized hypocrisy in exit strategies arose from the discrepancy between rhetoric, peacekeeping mandates and actions in the field. The analysis then shows how, as a response to organized hypocrisy, peacebuilding replaced the election-based approach of exit strategies from the early 1990s. By evaluating the institutionalization of peacebuilding, the study reveals the hypocritical potential of reform; complex mission mandates, as well as the Peacebuilding Commission, exhibit elements of counter-coupled organized hypocrisy and meta-hypocrisy that remain unresolved.