Progress by Peacekeeping? Civil-Military Relations and Involvement in UN Peacekeeping

Abstract

The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper: Civil-Military Relations and the United Nations. By Arturo C. Sotomayor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 280 pp., $39.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-421-41213-9). Could putting on a “blue helmet” help the troops back home? Does involvement in UN peacekeeping missions have an influence on civil-military relations? Although conventional wisdom indicates that involvement in peacekeeping operations could help democratizing countries with domestic reforms and military socialization, Arturo C. Sotomayor's path-breaking book shows that the specific tasks of the mission and preexisting domestic conditions may limit any overall positive effect that peacekeeping could have on a troop-supplying country. Focusing on Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in the 1990s and 2000s, Sotomayor offers many insights that are of value to those interested in civil-military relations, democratization, peacekeeping, and the potential influence of international factors on domestic politics writ large (Gourevitch 1978). Before examining the divergent effects that involvement in UN peacekeeping brings, Sotomayor starts his analysis with a theoretically rich look at potential reasons why a democratizing country would want to send troops on UN peacekeeping missions. Sotomayor's focus centers on three factors that drive participation: (i) political signaling, (ii) using the UN framework as an “accelerator” for necessary …