Peace Operations Research Articles

Just Leaves in the Wind? Using Agent-Level Factors to Explain Variation in Human Rights Promotion Strategies

ABSTRACT There is growing scholarly interest in the role of individuals in UN peace operations, but this literature includes very little systematic analysis of how individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders affect how international interventions are conducted. This paper seeks to fill this gap by building a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics on the behaviour of field-level personnel. I then show the utility of this framework for explaining the human rights promotion approaches of peace operations through a comparative study of two directors of human rights divisions in the DRC.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN UN PEACE OPERATIONS

As human rights norms increased in importance in the international system, the Protection of Civilians (POC) doctrine became the center of gravity in modern Peace Operations (PO), generating new organizational and structural demands on the United Nations (UN), on other international organizations, and on countries that contribute with troops and police (T/PCC). Can POC be understood as a “graft” onto a broader human rights norm? Has POC doctrine become institutionalized? Has the POC norm “cascaded?” Finally, how can we best observe the POC “cascade” and evaluate its effects on the success of peace missions? This article attempts to answer these questions from the perspective of norm evolution or norm life cycle theory, in dialogue with existing more institutionalist and technical as well as political conversations about the successes and failures of peace missions. Our method is a medium-N study of the evolution of PO mandates and reform processes since 1945. We focus on nine missions and three key reform documents (, (the Brahimi report of 2000, the High Independent Panel Peace Operations [HIPPO] report of 2015 and the Action for Peacekeeping [A4P] Initiative of 2019) and find that POC has followed a path consistent with the “life cycle” approach of international norms. To fully determine the extent to which POC has “cascaded” as an independent norm, we argue that it is essential to pay close attention to the boundaries between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of peace operations. In particular, actors at the operational level play the crucial role of decodifying POC for forces who implement tactics on the ground.

UN Reforms for an Era of Pragmatic Peacekeeping

ABSTRACT The era of liberal peacebuilding has passed, ushering in a turn toward pragmatic peacekeeping. Previously [Cassin, Katelyn, and Benjamin Zyla. 2021. “The End of the Liberal World Order and the Future of UN Peace Operations: Lessons Learned.” Global Policy 12 (4): 455–467] we argued that the UN must become less directive; accept a diffusion of control; and engage in more locally-driven approaches to peace interventions in light of this changing world order. In this article we posit that such reforms are contingent on change within liberal UN member states. We offer aligned strategic and operational recommendations for nations to reform their bureaucracies, training programmes, and framing strategies, to prepare for a fifth generation of UN peacekeeping that is normatively-flexible, collaborative, adaptive and relational.

The UN and the Protection of Civilians: Sustaining the Momentum

Abstract The protection of civilians (PoC) concept remains contested twenty-three years after the first PoC mandate. Current PoC frameworks used by the United Nations (UN) do not assist with determining applicable legal standards. They lead the UN down an unsustainable path that risks diminishing political support for PoC, especially within intense conflicts and following well-documented protection failures. With ever-rising expectations from communities under protection, the UN’s ‘Three Tiers of PoC Action’, and the complexity and dilution of PoC mandates under a whole-of-mission approach, it becomes challenging to determine what missions must do to protect individuals. Undertaking a major re-evaluation of PoC, this article charts the progression of PoC mandates drawing on examples from several missions drawing out the diverse nature of PoC and subsequent activities. The article then argues that current definitions and practical applications of PoC have cast the net too wide, presented uncertainties, and leave PoC open to attack from Member States amidst a political climate of weakened support for collective security action. Instead, the discussion must shift towards a concise and shared understanding of what protection mandates entail for UN peace operations. The article suggests how PoC can be reconceptualised to distinguish a narrow and easily communicated minimum obligation to be placed on UN peacekeepers.

Manutenção da Paz Multidimensional: A paz local não dura quando a paz nacional falha

Abstract The United Nations’ multidimensional operations have recently been authorised to use force to protect civilians. Among their peacekeeping activities are initiatives to deal with conflict management/resolution at the local level. While contemporary peacekeeping tends to be highly concentrated at the national level, it has increasingly striven to implement initiatives at the local level. However, local level operations face certain difficulties. To address this, the UN tends to focus on the initiatives, approaches, and strategies it employs at the local level, one of which is the use of force to protect civilians during peace operations. The present analysis revolves around the argument that ‘local peace’ will not last long unless a peace agreement is achieved and sustained at the national level, and, consequently, that the connection between peace and conflict at both the local and national levels is key to tackling conflicts. This paper uses primary documents, secondary sources, and interviews, as well as specific examples from operations in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic, to inductively confirm this argument, and discuss the difficulties that peace operations face on the issue.

The impacts on the change of training architecture for UN Peacekeeping Operations in Brazil

This article seeks to analyze how norms and procedures created in International Organizations spread to member states. More specifically, the analysis focuses on how changes in the training architecture for UN peace operations, driven by the Brahimi report, caused institutional and procedural changes on the administrative, political and military spheres in Brazil. Combining official documents and analytical literature, through process tracing, we find that the main causal mechanism observed was emulation, given Brazil’s desire to adapt to use the capacity building as a tool for international action.

How Peacekeepers Fight: Assessing Combat Effectiveness in United Nations Peace Operations

Contrary to popular perceptions, United Nations (UN) peacekeepers engage in combat fairly frequently. A central challenge facing the UN is thus calibration between force and politics: ensuring the organization’s combat power is harnessed to viable political strategies for peace. However, the epistemic community on peacekeeping remains deeply divided between skeptics and proponents of “robust” operations, where peacekeepers are expected to use force to implement mission mandates. This article suggests that militarily effective, robust peacekeeping is most important for improving civilian protection and ensuring mission credibility in theaters where there is no peace to keep; proposes a novel framework and typology to assess combat effectiveness in UN peace operations; and compiles descriptive statistics for the 1948–2020 period. Finally, case studies of four battles involving UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo illuminate the conditions that are conducive to the UN’s combat effectiveness.

ELİF ŞAFAK’IN KAYIP AĞAÇLAR ADASI’NDAKİ ÖYKÜLENEN İNCİR AĞACI MESELESİ YOLUYLA ETNO-BÖLÜNMÜŞ TOPRAKLARIN GERİ ALINMASI

Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees fictionalizes the traumatic history of a partitioned Cyprus after Turkish military peace operation of the island’s North, leading to the subsequent division of the island into a Greek South and a Turkish North and the displacement of thirty percent of the population. The novel revolves around the lost land of Cyprus which has always been plagued by ethnonationalism on both sides with the characterization of never-ending confrontation. Linking “environmental dimension to co-existence and conflict” Shafak’s novel provides a palpable example of arboreal studies, where trees prompt a new way of epistemologies and ontologies for the human. This paper explores the ways and which the fig tree as a storied matter carries the transgenerational trauma and forced partition. The narrative agency of the fig tree, its narrative voice and materiality constitute a way to reclaim the common history, culture, experience, shared symbiotic lives with nature.

Failed Peace in South Sudan? Exploring Unarmed Civilians and Local Peacekeepers through the Work of Nonviolent Peaceforce

Since the 2013 outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, the conflict has produced orgies of casualties and displacement of millions necessitating a series of mandates of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Yet, humanitarian crises and civilian protection challenges have not been reversed. To address these deficiencies, this article examined methods of the unarmed civilian peacekeeping as local peace formation and infrastructure involving the non-use of weapons for civilian protection as practiced by the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP). Adopting ethnographic strands of Critical Peace Studies and utilisation of participant observations in humanitarian accounts with the NP between 2015 and 2019, our in-depth qualitative fieldwork indicates a potentially effective approach to unarmed civilian protection in the country. Our findings illuminate the limited viability of the UN civilian appointed personnel, while making an argument for the compelling efficacy of unarmed civilian peacekeepers in which those affected by the conflict are themselves empowered in their physical protection, the study further recommends the integration of the NP strategies into the current state of peace operation disarray so the current self-fulfilling prophecy of failed peace in South Sudan can be overturned.

Koruma sorumluğu Kapsamında Kıbrıs Barış Harekatı

The use of military intervention against Humanitarian Crises during the Cold War was a concept that was limited in world politics and international law. Today, despite the theoretical and legal debates, sometimes by UN Security Council resolutions and sometimes by exceeding the only legitimate authorized institution of the use of force, states implement their responsibility to protect against third-party countries. Studies on the responsibility to protect, covering the history and theory of international relations, call the Cyprus Peace Operation a controversial example of humanitarian intervention in terms of the international community's reaction and the operation's legitimacy. Therefore, it will be examined within the framework of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in international political theory. In the 1990s, the International Relations literature defined humanitarian intervention as limiting the sovereignty of states against global atrocities. After the 2005 Earth Summit, R2P, third-party action against humanitarian crises, becomes a normative order-forming phenomenon. The phenomenon will allow us to examine the 1974 peace movement within the context of its responsibility to protect it. Discussions on the Cyprus Peace Operation under the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be used as the study's research method in the Parliamentary Budget Discussions.

United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy: A framework to accelerate transformative change for persons with disabilities in the peace and security pillar

AbstractThe United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy establishes the first-ever framework for the United Nations system to advance disability inclusion across all pillars of the Organization's work, including the peace and security pillar, and to measure the progress made across the system. Evidence reported since the launch of the Strategy in 2019 demonstrates that the Strategy has provided a clear impetus among United Nations entities and peace operations working in the sector to address the rights of persons with disabilities, who are among the most marginalized in any crisis-affected community. However, the evidence also reveals that while humanitarian entities have made progress since the launch of the Strategy, disability inclusion remains an emerging area of work for peace operations in the field. The article argues that the Strategy's accountability framework has provided a much-needed blueprint and ability to monitor progress across the system, yet far more needs to be done to ensure that the United Nations system is equipped to respond to complex situations and reach the furthest behind first.

Detaining the Short-Term: Assessing the Nature of “Interim” United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and Mandates

Abstract When looking at the classification of United Nations peace operations, the role of the ‘interim’ mission is one that evokes particular interest. What is evident is that there has been a repeated usage of this term to describe missions with vastly different mandates, operational parameters and ultimately, lives. Considering the importance of how the nature or character of a mission is presented to themes concerning their legitimacy and related narratives, there is value in exploring how the United Nations has historically employed this term in peacekeeping contexts and the rationales and realities that may have underpinned such usage. This paper purports to make such an exploration with the understanding that the language used to outline the contours of peace operations and characterize the terms of their existence is an essential element when assessing the dialectics that surround the justifications of employing peacekeeping missions.

The Changing Face(s) of Peace Operations: Critical and Behavioral-Quantitative Paths for Future Research

Abstract Peace operations and associated peacekeeping research have changed dramatically over time. This article reviews the extent to which two prominent strands of peacekeeping research – behavioral-quantitative/quantitative and critical – have reflected changes in peacekeeping practice. Following critiques of how these approaches have fallen short, the article provides a research agenda for each research approach. The article concludes by addressing ways in which the two approaches might be bridged and the barriers to such collaboration therein.

Who leads peace operations? A new dataset on leadership positions in UN peace operations, 1948–2019

It is widely recognized that UN peace operations have been critically influenced by their leadership personnel in the field since the first UN peacekeepers were deployed in 1948. But who exactly are the people that lead peace operations and decide how these are implemented on the ground? This special data feature introduces a new dataset on leadership positions in UN peace operations from its interception in 1948 up to 2019. The relevance of different authorities in peace operations is discussed, followed by an examination of general trends in the data with regards to the duration of term in different leadership positions, the national and regional origin of peace operations authorities, and the distribution of gender. It is shown that scholars studying a variety of topics, including policymaking at the UN, the use of force in peace operations, international responsibilities, and the role of the global south in international politics, can benefit from paying closer attention to the question of who occupies leadership positions in UN peace operations.

Offering the Carrot and Hiding the Stick?

Abstract Credibility has been used to explain theories of deterrence and cooperation in international relations. In the peacekeeping environment, for what purposes should credibility be built and how can it be signaled? Despite being listed by the UN as a success factor in peace operations, our understanding of credibility in peacekeeping remains limited and focused on deterrence. This article argues that credibility in peace operations must be built for both deterrence and cooperation purposes. Drawing on the international relations, civil war, and peacekeeping literatures, it conceptualizes credibility in peacekeeping by identifying the purposes for which credibility must be built and signaled: deterrence and cooperativeness. It contends that while a peace operation’s ability to deter is limited, signaling cooperativeness - credibility in cooperation—enables a force to cultivate cooperation with national and subnational audiences. This helps to create a more predictable security environment by enabling the force to function on a daily basis.

‘To Serve and Protect’: The Changing Roles of Police in the Protection of Civilians in UN Peace Operations

ABSTRACT This article examines the contributions of police to the Protection of Civilians (PoC) in United Nations (UN) peace operations. Drawing on field research in four missions where police have had to implement PoC mandates in challenging and unprecedented ways, I identify lessons associated with emerging practice. The article contributes to debates about non-military forms of civilian protection arguing that police – at once uniformed and civilian, coercive but also community-oriented – offer unique contributions to PoC. It also highlights the need for a systematic evaluation of what works and what does not for protection through policing to be harnessed in future missions.

Communicating peace operations: the role of peacekeeping deployment maps in a United Nations field mission

Communicating peace operations: the role of peacekeeping deployment maps in a United Nations field mission

REFLECTIONS OF THE CYPRUS PEACE OPERATION TO THE LOCAL PRESS: THE CASE OF MUŞ ŞARK TELGRAF (Orient Telegraph) NEWSPAPER

Türkiye, Zürih ve Londra Antlaşmaları ile Kıbrıs’ta garantör devlet olurken bu durum Türkiye’ye Kıbrıs’taki gelişmeleri daha yakından izleme fırsatı vermiş hatta 1963 ve 1967 yıllarında Rumların Türklere yönelik katliamlarını engellemek için askerî harekât düzenlemek istemiştir. Ancak başta ABD ve BM’nin engellemesi ile karşılaşmıştır. 15 Temmuz 1974’te Kıbrıs’ta Nikos Sampson darbesi sonrası Kıbrıs Helen Cumhuriyeti’ni ilan edilmiştir. Türkiye, Kıbrıs’ta meydana gelen bu oldubitti karşısında garantör devlet olarak 20 Temmuz 1974’te askerî harekât düzenlemiştir. Kıbrıs’taki gelişmeler ulusal basında olduğu gibi yerel basınında da en önemli haber konusu olmuş ve o yıllarda Muş’un tek yerel gazetesi olan Şark Telgraf gazetesi konuyu geniş bir şekilde sütunlarına taşımıştır. Bu çalışmada Şark Telgraf gazetesinin I. ve II. Kıbrıs Barış Harekâtını, Cenevre görüşmelerini ve sonrasındaki gelişmeleri Muş kamuoyuna nasıl yansıttığı ve olaylar karşısındaki tutumunu ortaya koymak amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaçla gazetenin 15 Temmuz - 15 Eylül 1974 arasındaki nüshaları taranmış, gazete temel veri kaynağı olarak alınmış ve incelenmiştir.

A Synopsis of Perspectives on Peace Operations from Theories of International Relations

The post-Cold War era has witnessed a significant increase in the size and scope of peace operations. However, the role and purpose of peace operations have not received commensurate attention within the intellectual context of theories of international relations. Comprehension of theoretical foundations of international relations is quintessential in understanding the motives behind, and implications of third-party intervention in the quest for a viable peace. This paper presents a synopsis of major theoretical paradigms in world politics with particular emphasis on their understanding of and implications for contemporary peace operations. The paper strives to delineate the main planks of a particular theoretical paradigm with special reference to the underpinnings of peace operations. Towards the end, the possibility of training peacekeepers to serve as a bridge between the theory and practice of peace operations has been explored. The research findings shall serve the purpose of filling a theoretical gap in peace operations studies and shall decipher the theoretical basis of the acerbic arguments against peace operations espoused by the obstructionists to the peace processes.

Revisiting the Law on UN Peace Operations’ Support to Partner Forces

Abstract Modern UN peace operations frequently deploy in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs). Their activities tend to support governmental forces in stabilizing the country, including the combat against non-state actors. This is one of the most prominent examples of ‘support relationships’ or ‘partnered warfare’, namely situations in which a foreign partner provides military support for an ally in an armed conflict. This also raises the question, however, of the legal status of UN peace operations and their activities in such circumstances. This article examines the legal situation and finds that the current legal tenets regarding UN peace operations becoming a party to a conflict and individual peacekeepers directly participating in hostilities do not address the issue in a satisfactory manner. It also finds that while the International Committee of the Red Cross has proposed the support-based approach to clarify the issue, this lacks an appropriate legal basis. The article argues that a ‘totality-of-the-circumstances’ approach regarding the existence of a NIAC, which corresponds to the original spirit of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, provides a proper legal basis which addresses identified concerns. The article concludes by discussing such an approach’s advantages and drawbacks in the case of support relationships.