Peacebuilding Commission Research Articles

An approach to intercultural training deemphasizing cross-cultural differences

PurposeThis paper aims to present an approach to intercultural training (IT) in which course participants are informed about various approaches to differences between peoples. Pitfalls in communication are identified that are due to overgeneralization of incidental observations of behavior and to psychological mechanisms such as stereotyping, ethnocentrism and attribution. Effects of poor command of a second language and paralinguistic factors are also included.Design/methodology/approachIntercultural communication training or IT programs often over-generalize incidental observations and make attributions about broad differences between “us” and “others”. An approach to IT is described that challenges the way in which notions about “culture” and “cultures” tend to be used.FindingsA training module based on the principles mentioned is described that was originally developed for military officers preparing for international peace-keeping and peace-building missions and later has been administered in various settings and countries.Research limitations/implicationsAn exit questionnaire and postmission interviews have suggested positive effects of the training, but more systematic evaluation research is needed.Practical implicationsCross-cultural communication (3C) training is mostly about how other people differ from “us”. Better understanding may be gained with an approach that emphasizes how much humans everywhere are alike and that perceived differences can also be in the eye of the beholder.Social implicationsMutual understanding is critical to positive interaction. The approach to 3C training taken here explains how much humans everywhere are alike and puts manifest differences into perspective.Originality/valueThe training module builds on available knowledge, notably from cross-cultural psychology. Except for a questionnaire to demonstrate ethnocentrism, there is hardly new information. However, the approach arranges available knowledge in a way that is rather novel for the field of 3C training.

Ethics as Moral Practice in Peacekeeping Missions: Insights on the Importance of Ethical Training

ABSTRACT Identifying peacekeeping as practical ethics helps analyze how the problems of existing approaches to military ethical training led to practical problems of standard setting. This article illustrates the value of understanding ethics as a theoretical framework to confront and prepare for moral practice. Pointing out the problems in terms of how military ethics ascertain the nature of ethics, the field of military ethics frames problems in ways that undermine standard settings for moral practice. Specifying these problems complements established theoretical inputs and helps peacekeepers better adjust to the moral choices and dilemmas ahead. This is particularly because military ethical training is also about coming to terms with society’s moral standards and demands that led to peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in the first place. The article illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to military ethical training with the example of Austrian peacekeeper ethical training.

A Perpetual (Liberal) Peace? An Empirical Assessment of an Enduring Peacebuilding Model

ABSTRACT How has the local turn approach been translated within peacebuilding mission mandates? Novelties introduced by International and Regional Organizations’ strategic documents shape a new approach termed ‘local turn’ (LT) in the literature, which envisages a more context-sensitive peacebuilding focused on resilience and local ownership. While finding significant potential, academic debate describes LT as a strategic adaptation of the liberal peace paradigm, functional to the provision of means for a pragmatic retreat from (over)ambitious goals. The study builds on this by focusing on a rather unexplored type of primary source: mission mandates. Through automated text analysis, we trace the consistency of liberal peace and local turn features in the United Nations and European Union peacebuilding mandates over the past two decades. The results confirm a detachment between policy orientations versus goals and instruments already at the level of mandates and highlight traits of systematicity in the utilitarian use of LT as an exit strategy. This study enriches the literature on UN and EU peacebuilding and paves the way for further research on policy change in post-conflict reconstruction.

The Logic of International Response to Anti-Violence and Sexual Integrity Agenda in Violent Conflict: Case of MINUSCA

A survivor-centered approach is at the heart of the international community’s humanitarian action today. In armed conflicts various forms of sexual violence are seen not only as accompanying violence, but also as a tool of pressure and warfare of the contesting parties, and important measures to prevent and counteract such acts have been included into the mandates of the UN peacekeeping missions. This research aims to identify the logic of international community’s action to counter conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) by strengthening peacekeeping initiatives, and complement ongoing research on the protection of women in armed conflict and situations of sexual violence. This goal entails an examination of all elements of the existing system: legal framework, the role of states, and the activities of the UN. The authors conducted a content analysis of the UN Security Council resolutions on the topic to trace conceptual terminological changes. At the same time, to identify the main contradictions in the rhetoric of states and, consequently, the motives of their actions, a discourse cluster analysis was used based on the statements of delegations in the UN Security Council. The resulting clusters display three unique positions of the national states that are mostly explained by different understandings of the term itself, the categories of victims of such violence, and the relevant tools for countering it. Emphasis could be placed on including sexual violence on the sanctions list, gender education in military training, increasing the number of women in peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions, or preventive measures. The authors identified the most active states pushing the anti-sexual violence agenda; they include Germany, the UK, the US, Canada, and France. The article also examines the practical implementation of UN peacekeeping mandates in terms of including measures to counteract sexual violence. The research confirms that peacekeeping missions are now more actively engaged in the international response to CRSV.

The Southern African Development Community’s Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM): Policymaking and Effectiveness

ABSTRACT On 23 June 2021, after months of deliberations, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) approved the establishment of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) in response to escalating violent extremism and insurgency by an Islamist armed group, Al-Shabaab or Al-Sunnah wa Jama’ah (ASWJ), in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, which posed the risk of regional contagion. SAMIM was deployed under scenario 6 of the African Standby Force (ASF) with a mandate focused on supporting the Mozambican government to combat terrorism and violent extremism in Cabo Delgado. Its mandate also centred on strengthening and maintaining peace and security; restoring law and order; and assisting the government and humanitarian agencies to provide humanitarian relief to the affected population. This paper contributes to raising public understanding of the regional and continental policies and principles underpinning the SADC decision-making process regarding the deployment of peace missions and the effectiveness of SAMIM in fulfilling its mandated tasks until its first anniversary. It identified the relative pacification of Cabo Delgado as a crucial strategic and operational impact of SAMIM’s exceptional military intervention, which facilitated its segue into a multidimensional peacebuilding mission. Six principal constraints-cum-opportunities of SAMIM, which had a significant bearing on its effectiveness, are discussed.

Regime Types, Regime Identities, and African Foreign Policies

Despite the common interests of African states vis-à-vis the rest of the world, African states display autonomy and variety in their foreign policies with one another. How can we account for this variation? This article advances the idea that regime type and regime identity frame the overall foreign policies of African states. It identifies three regime types: the competitive multiparty regime, the party-dominant regime, and the personalist regime. The latter two types have identities that reflect the dominant party's ideology or the ruler's predilections. One can find distinctive patterns of foreign policy associated with each regime type in areas such as relations with Western powers, adherence to African norms, and willingness to engage in continental peacebuilding missions.

Climate Change and Environmental Conflict in The Lake Chad Region

Environmental conflicts manifest in different ways, with context-specific impacts on the affected regions. Emerging as a crucial point of national and international security, issues of climate change have taken the fore. In the Lake Chad Region, more people have become more susceptible to the climate change, given the poverty level, unemployment and inadequate governance in these regions. Christened as the world’s most complicated humanitarian disaster, the receding lake which has served as a major source of livelihood in time past is now a haven for violent conflict and extremist groups. Assuming top on the agenda of African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council and the UN Peacebuilding Commission meetings held in 2022, its importance cannot be underestimated. To this end, this paper strengthens the evidence on climate-related conflict in the Lake Chad Basin and its simultaneous effect on human security. Using qualitative method, data was gathered through secondary sources, such as journal articles, reports from the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), books and online sources on the subject matter. Data gathered were analyzed using content analysis. Findings reveals that the vulnerability of the area based on poverty, historical antecedents to conflict and crime, as well as the growing population makes the response to the receding lake naturally violent. It is recommended therefore, that the Lake should be revived and nourished by joint collaboration from states within the region and international actors as a long term plan. Also, resilient measures through employment opportunities and skilled training should be available for the youths and most vulnerable people.

Small State Strategy in Practice: The Formulation and Execution of Danish Theories of Success in the United Nations Security Council, 2005–2006

In 2005–2006, Denmark held a seat in the United Nations Security Council and, thus, had an opportunity to gain influence on international security issues otherwise not available to small states. This article applies the concept of theory of success as a heuristic tool to unfold how Denmark prepared and executed a general influence strategy in the Security Council. Furthermore, the article applies the concept to three instances where Denmark developed and executed issue-specific strategies: the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission, the direction of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the referral of war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. Based on newly released archival records in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the article tracks the strategy formulation within Danish diplomacy that sought to gain influence despite Denmark’s lack of relative power. The article also draws important lessons from the instances of successful Danish efforts in the Security Council that are applicable for the Danish election campaign for membership of the Security Council in 2025–2026.

Interview with Peter Maurer

Peter Maurer served as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from 2012 to 2022. During his time as President, Maurer prioritized strengthening humanitarian diplomacy, engaging States and other actors for the respect of international humanitarian law, and improving the humanitarian response through innovation and new partnerships. Meanwhile, he oversaw an historic budget increase and organizational expansion. Prior to his role at the ICRC, Mr Maurer served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Switzerland and headed the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. Earlier, Mr Maurer held various positions representing Switzerland at the United Nations (UN) in New York, including Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the UN, Chairman of the UN's Fifth Committee, and member of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. Mr Maurer had first joined the Swiss diplomatic service in 1987, through which he held various positions in Bern, Pretoria and New York. Maurer was born in Thun, Switzerland in 1956. He studied history and international law in Bern, where he also earned a doctorate.

International legal support of post-conflict settlement (on the example of the UN practice)

The article considers the legitimate possibilities of involving the UN in a post-conflict settlement. The history of formation of the institute of peacebuilding in the system of bodies of this organization is analyzed. Institutional and regulatory mechanisms for the application of peacekeeping operations have been identified. The peculiarities of the creation of the UN police force with the functions of monitoring the observance of the ceasefire regime in conflict zones are revealed. The definition of peacekeeping operations is described and the mechanism of their establishment by the adoption of UN Security Council resolutions is described. The article states that it was the UN that helped end the war in the Congo (1964), Iran and Iraq (1988), El Salvador (1992) and Guatemala (1996). The United Nations has made significant contributions to peace in Mozambique (1994), Sierra Leone (2005), and the declaration of independence of East Timor (2002). If the parties to the conflict do not comply, "all necessary measures" may be taken, including military action as carried out to restore Kuwait's sovereignty (1991), to deliver humanitarian aid to Somalia (1992), to restore the democratically elected Government of Haiti (1994) or to restore peace and security in East Timor in 1999.
 It is determined that in the practice of the UN such means of peacekeeping as preventive diplomacy, peace-making, peace-keeping, peace-keeping, peace-enforcement and peacebuilding in the post-conflict period have been formed. -building). The article focuses on the Peacebuilding Commission, which serves as an intermediate link between peacekeeping and post-conflict operations. The main tasks of the Commission are to establish links between all parties to coordinate actions and ensure genuine post-conflict activities. Currently, several countries are on the agenda of the Peacebuilding Commission: Burundi, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic.

The Influencing Factors on SUDAN’S DISPUTE Settlement and Its transition to the Democratic System

Purpose: In the case of a conflict that today destabilizes a country s system such as a complex civil war, it is quite difficult to resolve it on its own. If disputes are not any more internal problems and threaten international security, efforts by the international community cannot help but be made. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the resolution of disputes in a country and the transition of democratic systems can be achieved through multilateral cooperation among various actors in the international community. Method: To this end, the situation of Darfur in Sudan will be selected as a case study. First, the factors that influenced the resolution of conflict faced by Sudan and the transition of the democratic system will be divided into internal and external factors, then I look at how these factors worked and what the correlation between them is. Results: The two internal factors, the demand for democracy by civil society, which used the coup as an opportunity for change, and the resolution of disputes by the transitional government and the tran-sition to a democratic system, had positive impacts on Sudan. The external factor pushed by the U.S. has affected the will of the interim government for the transition to the democratic system. Efforts by the international community, including the United Nations, served as a positive external factor, too. The creation of a peace-building mission in response to the Sudanese government s willingness to re-solve the problem has served as a practical external factor of the international community. Conclusion: Intra-state conflict is not easy to be settled by the country’s single will. Therefore the Sudan case has meaningful implications to us on how that state and the international community will have to seek more inclusive efforts.

Private Military and Security Companies and The Militarization of Humanitarianism

The widespread use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in United Nations peacebuilding missions often undermines the effectiveness of these missions. PMSCs tend to encourage, in unnecessary ways, what is called security risk management and promote the militarization of humanitarian efforts. They encourage humanitarian aid organizations to protect their personnel with barbed wire fences, security guards, armed convoys, and secure aid compounds, even if the security risks are relatively low. Consequently, these militarized humanitarian efforts heighten the perception of risks and intensify security measures, which create physical and psychological barriers between humanitarian aid personnel and the local communities in which they carry out their tasks. This situation undermines local ownership of peacebuilding efforts and makes them less responsive to the local communities involved in these efforts. This article provides a comparative analysis of the nature of this problem and its effects in the Global South.

Juggling Several Balls at Once

Abstract Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.

Transitional Justice, Institutions and Temporality: Towards a Dynamic Understanding

Abstract This article examines the impact of institutionalisation of governance, bureaucracy and rule of law on the timeframes employed for transitional justice. It argues that the urgency of transitional justice has consistently given way to temporally extended justice projects as state strength permits revision of initial leniency in terms of truth, criminal accountability and vetting, while state weaknesses compel the delay of projects pending institutional development or consolidation through long-term peacebuilding missions. Furthermore, a more recent focus on transformative social change that looks at economic root causes of conflict would require states and policy-makers to use a longer, multigenerational timeframe for action. In the absence of theoretical work on how these multi-generational commitments might be realised, this article draws on literature in the field of development to outline a plausible model for how transitional justice, peacebuilding and development are dynamically realised over time. It argues that for transitional justice to be even minimally transformative, it must be embedded in top-down developmental institutions of government sufficiently robust to implement recommendations. It must also be embedded in bottom-up developmental coalitions whose everyday political contests can shape the structure and effects of these institutions over time.

Non-UN Peacekeeping Effectiveness: Further Analysis

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effectiveness of non-UN-led peacekeeping operations (PKOs) from two alternative perspectives. First, the four kinds of regional and international (out of region) PKOs are investigated based on their ability to curtail one-sided violence (OSV) against civilians by host governments or rebels. That analysis is further bolstered by propensity-score matching to ameliorate potential selection bias stemming from non-UN PKOs. For the matched sample, we find that non-UN peacebuilding and peace enforcement missions limit rebel caused OSV, which is a novel result. Second, the ability of non-UN PKOs’ troops and police to end conflict or to maintain peace are ascertained based on survival analysis. Non-UN troops, but not police, curtail the transition from peace, regardless of matching. Generally, non-UN PKOs display effectiveness in limiting OSV or maintaining peace, but not in ending conflict.

Перспективные модели строительства вооруженных сил стран-членов НАТО (на примере Германии и Норвегии)

Introduction. One of the key tendencies of modern international development is the growing importance of the “factor of power”. In this context, the initiated long process of the potential growth of the armed forces of the countries participating in NATO, which is of particular importance in the growth of new unconventional threats (one of the triggers of the Alliance transformation including through the strengthening of national units has become a global pandemic) is important from scientific and practical points of view. Methods and materials. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the theory of building armed forces. The basic sources for the analysis are official documents of military departments, as well as materials from related information centers, which reveal the parameters of the prospective appearance of the armed forces of the countries under study. NATO’s statistical and summit reports also occupy a special place. Analysis. The goal of the article is the research of the armed forces building processes in Germany and Norway for the future until the mid-2030s. These case countries can show the tendencies of military development of NATO European member states in the whole taking into account the differences between Germany and Norway in terms of the geographical location, the population as the main human resource of the armed forces, as well as the transformation of leadership and dynamics of relations between the “historical West” and the Russian Federation, which allows us to characterize the overall trends in the military and political development of European NATO member states. Results. It is proved that the growth of military potential is based on two main groups of reasons. The first is due to the strategic deterioration of relations between the West and Russia since the mid-2010s. The second is that the armed forces of the European member States of NATO have reached the “bottom” position in terms of almost all quantitative parameters. The continuing trend of decreasing numerical indicators (people and technology) threatens to reduce the role of the state on the world stage. Therefore, it is natural to see Germany’s desire to become a “framework nation” in the recruitment of NATO rotation groups in Europe, as well as in the deployment of peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions outside the area of responsibility of the Alliance, which inevitably leads to a large-scale increase in the number of armed forces and the cost of their modernization. In the case of Norway the transformation of the armed forces occurs in the conditions of refusal to increase included human resources and enhance the value of the military presence of NATO partners (primarily the US) first of all in the process of reorganizing the national system of territorial defense. In both cases, there are still tendencies to transform the role of the US in Europe and to consolidate the confrontation with the Russian Federation.

A Multi‐Transition Approach to Evaluating Peacekeeping Effectiveness

SUMMARYPast studies of the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations (PKOs) mainly focus on the preservation of peace. If the transitions from peace to conflict or from conflict to peace are correlated based on grievances or war weariness, then a multi‐transition survival analysis provides more efficient estimates and may limit bias. Our main analysis for 133 country‐based conflicts during 1990–2016 shows that estimates of the two transitions display a significant negative covariance, consistent with grievances and the need for a multi‐transition approach. As a robustness check, we match UN PKOs with the absence of UN PKOs to address nonrandom assignments of PKOs. For the matched and unmatched estimates, we find that UN peace enforcement missions induce a transition from conflict to peace, while UN observation, traditional peacekeeping, and peacebuilding missions limit a transition from peace to conflict. We also show that UN troops, rather than UN police, are more effective in transitioning from conflict to peace and in maintaining peace after conflict. Further robustness runs for alternative subsamples (e.g., just civil wars) support the main results. Our findings indicate the appropriate UN PKO mission type and personnel mix to deploy depending on the conflict’s current state.

Translating Culture: Mediating Customary Law Related Language

This paper aims to outline the role of translators and interpreters as cultural mediators for international police forces during peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in Kosovo. They were an essential source of cultural information concerning informal legal practices, folk culture, speaking style and etiquette with the parties in the procedure. These idiosyncrasies require deep understanding and are a prerequisite for producing meaningful translation. The culture in mediation is represented in a particular way of speaking known as allegorical conversation (biseda me rrotulla). It relies on ambiguous language, on allusions, ellipsis, references to customary law resolutions, folk stories, specific and anonymous people, and traditional procedures to resolve disputes.

The UN in conflict resolution: the case of East Timor

The involvement of the United Nations in East Timor can be divided into four periods, including the anti-colonial period (1955-1974), the reaction period (1975-1982), the attenuation period (1983-1998) and the commitment period (from 1999). It is about this last period that this paper will focus by analysing the decisive steps of the UN, as a multilateral organization with a security mandate, in resolving the Timorese conflict and peacebuilding in that territory. This analysis will be guided by the proposals of the document An Agenda for Peace presented in 1992 by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the expectations he created in the field of peace operations. We are particularly interested in looking at the design of post-conflict peacebuilding missions and assessing the extent to which the (expected) capital gains from these operations compared to conventional peacekeeping missions would come to fruition or not. Thus, it is important to examine how the main missions were carried out, with special focus on the different actors, as well as to make a critical balance with some historical distance. In this context, it seems to us that the case of East Timor will be a good example to understand the need for a new approach to peacebuilding, as advocated in this Report, but which at a distance of more than 25 years becomes even more evident. The perception of peace as a continuous process that involves a whole sustainability network, and that depends above all on fostering and developing competences for peace (involving multiple and distinct actors facing constant coordination and negotiation challenges), therefore allows demanding greater commitment on the part of the Security Council, but also on that of the General Assembly in carrying out this difficult task in the context of the new world (dis) order.

Turning International Intervention into Domestic Cooperation in Post-War Societies

ABSTRACTInternational intervention is widely considered to stabilize peace in post-war societies. Its effects on democracy are more contested. External intervention risks reinforcing, rather than resolving deadlocks in domestic politics. This negative effect is not inevitable. This article proposes a new, theoretical model of political peacebuilding, based on a spatial model of politics in post-war democracies. In the classical model, the peacebuilding mission has an own political agenda, which relieves the domestic political actors of their political responsibility and deepens the domestic deadlock. In the arbiter model proposed in this article, the peacebuilding mission uses its powers to push for compromises between the domestic actors. This enables democratic decision-making within the domestic institutions. Empirically, the paper studies the impact of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia–Herzegovina with its power to issue binding decrees. The paper analyses the role of former High Representatives, using the authors’ original interviews with the office-holders and over 2700 press releases. As the results show, periods when the OHR acted as an arbiter were rewarded with a higher degree of cooperation between domestic elites. These findings corroborate the usefulness of the arbiter model as a new strategy of international intervention in post-conflict societies.