UN Peacekeeping: Is it still useful and effective?

Abstract

United Nations Peacekeeping has been at the centre of international conflict resolutions for little less than a century and is still considered to be a powerful tool in the hands of the UN. This study investigates the effectiveness and usefulness of UN peacekeeping missions. It explores the evolution of peacekeeping from its foundation to its latest missions and examines its aims and purposes. It considers the meaning of peace and its implication. Lastly, the study analyses the available data to determine whether UN Peacekeeping is successful in fostering peace. The results were positive when it came to reducing violence and death and mixed for social and economic development. This paper also investigates what could be done to further develop UN Peacekeeping and make it more effective. In conclusion, this study advices an incremented use of UN peacekeeping paired with a series of changes to be implemented to make it more effective and better suited for the 21st century.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Brief History of UN Peacekeeping and theories behind

The Westphalian Period

Post-Westphalian Period

Peacekeeping in the 21st century

3. UN peacekeeping purposes

Prevention

Observation

Stabilization

Enforcement

Assistance

Administration

4. Definition of Peace

5. Are the UN Peacekeeping missions effective?

6. Where do we go from here?

7. Conclusions

8. Bibliography

1. Introduction

The United Nations has authorized 78 missions between 1948 and 2021. They all had different mandates and backgrounds, some succeeded and some did not. The role of the UN during the last 80 years in international politics has changed and adapted to its time. The peacekeeping missions reflect that and have drastically modified their goals as well as their methods over the years.

The important questions I will try to respond to are: are UN mission useful? Can they be considered effective? How could they improve?

In order to truly understand UN peacekeeping and its role, the first step is retracing its evolution both from a theoretical and from a practical standpoint. The second chapter will follow the development from the so-called Westphalian approach to the post-Westphalian and the addition to this last one of the multidimensional approach (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010). The story of the UN peacekeeping follows the canonical divisions of the historical periods of the late 20th century going from the Cold War up until 1989, the USA hegemony of the 90s up until the early 2000s, and finally the more confused and less defined last few years. In the third chapter, I will do a quick dive in to what peacekeeping missions actually do. Looking at some examples from the past and trying to understand if these are strategies that can be used in the future. In order to understand if peacekeeping missions are relevant and how we can consider them effective, an excursus on the definition of peace is necessary as the concept itself has been reinterpreted multiple times in the last 50 years. In chapter four I will go through the evolution from the idea of negative peace to the positive peace/peacebuilding approach. Finally, in chapter five I will dive into the available literature on peacekeeping effectiveness and see what the results are of quantitative studies on the matter, covering most of the definitions of peace that are enumerated in the previous chapter. Lastly, based on the information gathered, I will propose some possible improvements and ideas for the future of the UN peacekeeping. I will end by drawing my conclusions based on the studies, data and pieces of information that have been presented.

2. Brief History of UN Peacekeeping and theories behind

I believe that the first step to truly understand and be able to discuss a subject is to study its history and how it evolved over the years. UN peacekeeping as we know it today has its roots in the years right after the end of World War II. The great powers that had won the war (USA, USSR, China, UK, France) were the leaders in the creation of the UN and were big believers that they had the responsibility to be the “Police” of international affairs. They bestowed upon themselves the right to a permanent place in the UN security council and the power of veto, a way in which each one of these single nations can overturn the vote of many others. This has always created an imbalance of power that can be considered one of the many flaws of how the UN operates. While these rights from a theoretical standpoint created a disparity and a “legalized hierarchy” between the five powers and the rest of the world, it might have saved the UN from collapsing during the Cold War (Simpson, 2009). The veto helped the UN to avoid divisive operations, encouraged the five powers to consult before many decisions (Roberts and Kingsbury, 2008). Another important point behind the foundation of the UN, in fact, was the idea that peace and in particular the pursuit of peace must develop from the international community as a collective, meaning that wars between states were the subject of international concern and could be resolved only through collective action.

The Westphalian Period

In 1948 the very first peacekeeping mission was created: UNTSO. This was a result of the Arab-Israeli war which started that very same year. The peacekeepers were tasked to observe and maintain the cease fire between Israel and the countries of the Arab League (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan). Just one year later, the second historical peacekeeping mission was deployed amidst the first Indo-Pakistani war of 1947. UNMOGIP was part of the Karachi Agreement signed by the countries in 1949 and its role was to report any violation of the ceasefire between the two. As we can see, both of these missions had a very clear scope: help to maintain and oversee the ceasefire between two or more nations. These missions are all part of what we could consider the first macro-period of the UN Peacekeeping that has been defined by Paul Williams as the Westphalian period (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010). This time frame roughly begins with the creation of the United Nations and ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this period, we can consider the nation as the fundamental unit of measure. So, in this time frame, most of the peacekeeping interventions were finalized to maintain and produce peace between sovereign states.

In order to better understand the concept of nation and in particular the Westphalian one, we need to look at the early 1600s in Europe. The term Westphalian comes from the agreements taken at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, in which it was recognized the sovereignty of a series of States in Europe. This idea of sovereignty was based on:

1. “The right to monopolize control of the instruments of violence;

2. the sole right to collect taxes;

3. the prerogative of ordering the political allegiances of citizens and of enlisting their support in war;

4. the right to adjudicate in disputes between citizens;

5. the exclusive right of representation in international society” (Linklater, 2013, p.28)

While in modern times these types of power are owned by almost every state around the globe, the situation was much more complex at the time of the foundation of the UN, as European empires still claimed ownership of many colonies. With the dissolution of these empires, the Westphalian order could be applied to all the former colonies. The number of UN member states skyrocketed from around 50 to more than 160 in 20 years. The centrality of states can be seen in the Charter of the United Nations especially in article: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…”(United Nations, 2020, art. 2 para. 4). The two key points from this article are that the UN peacekeepers were mainly concentrated in resolving conflict between sovereign states and would not interfere in internal affairs of states. The UN would respect absolutely the first 4 monopolies that define a sovereign state and would intervene only if they received the consent from the states directly involved in the conflict. It was based on these principles, war in between two or more sovereign countries and with consent of all the interested parties, that most of the first UN peacekeeping mission were deployed. Other missions that started in that period, and are still standing today, such as UNDOF (1974) in charge of supervising the ceasefire between Israel and Syria after the Yom Kippur War, or UNIFIL (1978) to supervise the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Lebanon, are to be considered in the same category.

It is easy to see how this so-called Westphalian period is deeply connected to the Realist and Neo-Realist theories in International Relations. First and foremost, the centrality of the state, that is the main actor. Also, the importance of war as intended between sovereign nations is a very strong point. While the UN itself could be intended as an authority that is above everyone else, that could make it look like a liberal institution, this was not the case during this period: the UN, and in particular the UN peacekeeping, draws its power from the sovereignty of the interested states. The type of peace that is preferred and favoured is much closer to a truce and relegated mostly to military intervention. The peacekeepers are there to basically increase the cost of renewing the conflict and making it less likely that an egotistical nation would go to war. Also, the fact that there are some members in the security council that are permanent could be considered as proof that the UN were intended as a tool to expand the hegemonic power of the great powers that had just won the war.

Post-Westphalian Period

1989 is considered to be one of the most important points of recent history and it is not different for the UN. The fall of the Soviet Union is used as the starting point to the “Post-Westphalian” period. Obviously, it is not that clear cut the change in attitude and mentality, with the first clues that pointed to a new type of UN peacekeeping and UN in general already perceivable in the years before (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010). In the 1990s, the first macroscopic difference that we can see is the increase in the number of peacekeeping missions. Between 1988 and 1993 - the UN started more new missions than in the previous 40 years. This was accompanied by a qualitative transformation, the UN were tasked to carry on missions that were much larger and costlier than all the previous attempts. This part is closely related to a switch to the “Post-Westphalian” period.

While the UN charter, as we saw before, is a document that was created as extremely Westphalian, it also true that, already in its Preamble, the focus is more on the People and less on Nations: “We the Peoples of the United Nations determined (…) to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, (...) and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (United Nations, 2020, p. 1).This was the basis for the development of the UN in the 1990s. The preamble clearly states “the peoples” and not only nations and mentions also human rights, the dignity of people, justice, social progress and better standards of life.

If the role of the UN and its peacekeeping is to be based on this preamble, then its role and rules should change. The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was a vocal supporter of the new and improved role of the UN. He explained that the charter was never meant as a licence for governments to crush human rights or do whatever they wanted with their people. Sovereignty was not just a power but it implied responsibility. Consequently, the UN could intervene when the fundamental rights of “the peoples” were not respected by a state and not only when the conflict was between nations. This is the main point of the evolution of peacekeeping in the 1990s, people became the main unit instead of nations and as a consequence the idea that the UN should not intervene in internal conflict of a state was not valid anymore (Annan, 1999). In this post-Westphalian international order, the sovereignty of a state was contingent on it respecting its responsibilities to its people. This meant protecting its populations from atrocities, famine, human rights violations and forced displacement. One of the strongest supporters of this new approach to international interventions was Tony Blair, whose doctrine has been used to justify the NATO intervention in Kosovo (Blair, 1999). The ideas behind the NATO intervention in Kosovo and other UN interventions in the 1990s are closely related to the shift that was just explained. The international community cannot stand by in a situation when the population of a state is put at risk and have to intervene even if the interested state does not agree. They have to protect the people. This was the case with all the missions that started to prevent or at least reduce the ethnic cleansing and genocides that had begun after civil wars such as the ones in former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. Other missions such as UNMIH, ONUCI or MINURCA had the goal to help the transition after a coup d’état or an uprising. At the end of the century, most of the new missions were not focused on resolving wars between states but within them. All these interventions up until before the fall of the Berlin wall would have been considered a violation of the UN charter and would have never been approved, but the political landscape had completely changed. The US was now the only true power and the world had shifted from a bipolar system - the USSR did not exist anymore - to a hegemony. Not only the power landscape had changed but also the theories behind it. The new attitude is closely related to the theories of Liberalism in International Relations. The interventions in the post-Westphalian period more often than not tend to distance themselves from the simple military intervention, even though it is still a major part of what peacekeeping does. The most recognisable Liberal idea is that international cooperation will benefit everyone involved. The UN has become an integral part of cooperation as it is not a tool to enforce the interests of the most powerful states anymore, but a forum to resolve conflicts in a non-violent manner and to help protect the rights of the people. Peacekeeping changed completely and started to be more involved in fields other than controlling borders or ensuring that the terms of a truce were respected. While the evolution of peacekeeping might have been seen as a sure path to success, some of the missions that started in this period are considered to be great failures such as the deployments in Angola, Rwanda and Bosnia. These operations received poor guidance, did not have enough resources and the mandate itself was vague and confusing at best (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010).These shortcomings of the UN in the early 1990s motivated Kofi Annan to nominate Lakhdar Brahimi to chair a panel that would innovate and modify the peace keeping operations for the 21st century.

Peacekeeping in the 21st century

The Brahimi Report was presented for the first time at the Millennium summit in 2000. It analysed the failures of the UN operations and gave indications for the future. For example, one of the main issues in the mission in Rwanda was the lack of communication between the New York HQ and the local peacekeepers, which meant that the members of the security council were not kept in the loop and did not know that there was a potential threat of genocide, that would become a terrible reality when more then 700 000 Tutsi were killed (Keating, 2020). The Report took into consideration all the failures of the last decade and gave indications on how the future UN missions should be organized. The first set of recommendation was more organizational, focusing on increasing the quality and quantity of support to UN missions, creating clear and credible mandates, better collection and assessment of information in order to work on, when possible, prevention of conflict, promoting international human rights instruments and laws and providing better planning and accountability for both the local mission and the headquarters. Secondly the report defined what were the elements of peace operations: a mix of peace-making, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The first of the three is the simplest to understand, as it is basically termination of hostilities in any way possible. The second is the historical task of the peace operations, the military model based on securing ceasefires and keeping the two sides separated, but it should now also incorporate the more complex task of working together with both local civilian and military parts to keep peace even in civil war scenarios. The last term, peacebuilding, was the most innovative. It meant “activities undertaken on the far side of conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war” (Barnett et al., 2007, p.42). Consequently, this new approach meant that helping to strengthen the rule of law, by training the local police or developing a better judicial system, should be part of the UN missions’ mandates, together with improving the respect of human rights and assisting the local governments in developing a democratic system.

The Panel advised for better funded, more accountable, faster and more integrated missions that would be able to withstand most of the issues that the previous ones could not. The Brahimi report is the base for the expansion of the role of the UN in the 21st century and the creation of new multidimensional missions that, as the name suggests, are more complex and developed than just observation ones. We see the influence of this report in the 2005 Handbook for UN missions but even more in the 2008 United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines (United Nations, 2021). This document enlisted three principles that should be always interrelated and mutually reinforcing. The first is the Consent of the Parties. It stated that the UN operation would be deployed if the main parties expressed their consent, it is important to note that in this case not only the state is considered a party but also some non-state actors. The second principle was the Impartiality; the term is deliberately chosen instead of neutrality. This principle stated that the UN should be impartial when interfacing with the local actors but did not have to be neutral when in pursuit of their mandate. The example given is the one of a sports referee, it should be impartial but cannot stay neutral when one player or team breaks the rules. The last pillar was the Non-Use of force except in self-defence and in defence of the mandate, this one is quite self-explanatory and meant that in no occasion should the peacekeepers use force unless one of them or the mandate (civilians, bases, important infrastructure etc..) is in immediate danger. The document, as said, included most of the recommendations of the Brahimi report, ensuring that the UN mission should have a legitimate and credible mandate and should promote all the other peacebuilding initiatives.

3. UN peacekeeping purposes

Now that we have a better understanding of the transitions that the UN, and its peacekeeping missions in particular, undertook since its foundation, it is important to see what the main purposes of peacekeeping operations are. In this chapter I will quickly go through the six main aims of the UN peacekeeping missions, to later better understand if they achieve them and how. They are: Prevention, Observation, Stabilization, Enforcement, Assistance and Administration (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010).

Prevention

As we saw in the last part of the previous chapter, Prevention came to be one of the main buzz words when it comes to peace operations only recently, but it has always been at least theoretically an important point in the UN. The UN Charter says, in its Preamble, that the UN was founded to “save succeeding generations for them scourge of war” (United Nations, 1945, p.1). That literally means that the first and foremost aim should be to prevent new wars. The term prevention can be seen from three different angles, the prevention of a new war, the escalation of existing ones or the prevention of rekindling of dormant conflicts. Historically speaking, only one UN mission was fully successful in this, UNPREDEP, that prevented the spread of the war in the Balkans to Macedonia and avoided having Serbian forces invading them (Tardy, 2015). There are other examples of preventing violence such as UNMISS that included in its mandate some strong points on prevention, it has both a structural and an operational prevention system. It includes programmes to promote participation in politics, to ameliorate the rule of law and legislative system and also early-warning systems and offices to mediate conflicts.

Observation

The second purpose of the UN operations is Observation. It is quite self-defining, it entices observing and monitoring ceasefires and international agreements. It is what “traditional peacekeeping” is considered to be (Diehl et al., 1993). The basic idea is that when two or more states fight over a region, they request an external third-party to help mediate the dispute and control that the terms to which they agreed are respected. This represents quite a state centric or Westphalian approach and as such it was born and used mostly in the Cold War era. Observer missions have the duty to monitor the situation and send detailed reports on their findings to the UN. Historically, Observers have been assigned to provide reliable evidence and intel on if the involved states are respecting the ceasefires, demilitarized zone and other types of agreements. These kind of missions have also been defined as secondary (James, 1990). They do not have any coercive power to enforce whatever agreement was taken nor the creative power to propose any solution to the conflict. Most of the first and some of the longest standing missions are observer ones. For example, the above mentioned UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNFICYP and UNDOF. All of these operations have had positive impacts on the maintenance of the status quo and avoided further disruption and death in the area where they are deployed. UNDOF probably best exemplifies the idea of an Observer mission. It has been monitoring a 10 kilometres wide demilitarized zone since 1974. Peacekeepers there monitor the DMZ, reporting on incursions or unauthorized movements, check the compliance with the rules of the buffer zone from both sides and more recently started supporting medical activities for the local settlements.

Stabilization

Stabilization became a predominant buzz word in the UN meetings in the 2000s, but has never been precisely described and it has been kept vague on purpose, as it could be used in many different situations with various meanings. As such, there are various definitions that can fit this term.

Stabilization was first introduced in the mid-1990s with the missions in Rwanda and Bosnia. At the time, it was translated as reinforcing economies of troubled areas enough to withstand any kind of shock (Gorur and Center, 2016). The vagueness of the term is also connected with the fact that three western powers of the Security Council have all different definitions of it. The US is more focused on military intervention to foster resilience to attacks in case of conflict, UK more on the approaches to protect the legitimate authority and France more on restoring the viability of the region by ending the violence. All three have some points in common, first to see stabilization as a tool to respond to an inter/intrastate conflict, then, all point to a political outcome and all have a comprehensive mixed military and civilian approach. These pieces of information alone do not suffice to clear the concept of stabilization. There is still a large debate in academic literature on what stabilization is. For instance, Muggah sees it as a Pre-Peacebuilding intervention, meaning a transitional phase before the actual peacebuilding starts (Muggah, 2014). It was also interpreted as an Active conflict intervention, so UN stabilization happens only when war is still raging, meaning that there is a military component that takes care of maintaining a ceasefire (BELLAMY and HUNT, 2015). Extremely connected to this last explanation, there is the idea that stabilizations equates to a robust use of force, meaning an higher count of military troops that have to intervene whilst the conflict is still active (Karlsrud, 2015). The definition given by Gorur best ties all these ideas together, stabilization’s aim is restoring and expanding state authority while protecting civilians using a coordinated effort of civilian and military forces – peacekeepers in the UN - and also addressing the root cause of the conflict (Gorur and Center, 2016). Probably the best example of a stabilization mission is MINUSTAH. The mandate was to create a stable environment supporting and re-establishing the rule of law and the local police, to assist the state in its election and to monitor human rights violations. The peacekeepers in MINUSTAH ended up having to intervene heavily and directly fighting mostly local organized crime. The vagueness of the term and the lack of clarification from the UN about what stabilization entices still creates insecurity and concerns. Going forward it would be advisable to have a clearer definition, this will be part of the next chapters.

Enforcement

Enforcement is one of the most controversial purposes of the UN missions, as it is based on the idea that threats to the peace or any act of aggression should be responded with force. This is established under the Chapter VII of the UN Charter that authorizes the Security council to enforcement measures that include economic sanctions and military actions. The use of the Chapter VII has grown exponentially in the last 70 years, during the Cold War period it was invoked only 24 times while in the 21st century alone 572 times. The enforcement purpose shows a glaring issue with the constitution of the UN, which is lacking its own military force. This means that when acting to enforce resolutions and or protect peace, the UN has to delegate its authority to use force to other parties. That obviously creates issue of legitimacy. Historically speaking, there has always been a strong relationship between the US and the UN, so more often than not this meant that the main deterrent and enforcer of the UN Chapter VII has been the US military (Urquhart, 1993). Clearly, this can be seen as an issue, and it furthers the idea that the UN Military interventions are not completely legitimate. While this concern is important, and will need further discussion, it is also true that almost always the UN uses its force only at a tactical level. Meaning that peacekeepers are authorized to use force only in particular types of engagement: to defend themselves, to protect civilians or the mandate.

Assistance

The fifth purpose is Assistance, interpreted as assistance to transition to stable peace. The purpose is to help implement a process that is either managed or facilitated by the peacekeeper. This idea can be dated to the early years of the UN but, as always, has evolved and now entices extremely wide variety of tasks that the peacekeepers have to take on. The logic behind it is that the presence of the UN missions facilitates the peace process because they should provide an impartial oversight that increases the trust between the various parts. They also make it easier to communicate between the interested parties and help avoid the misinterpretations that could create new violence. Furthermore, they organize international aid and resources that can support the population in the process. Lastly, the UN should reduce the incidence of violence avoiding escalation. The assumptions behind the effectiveness of this kind of operation are that the local parties have ownership of the peace process and the external actors should not impose their preferred outcomes (Zanker, 2018). This means that, as per the observation purpose, the UN must have been invited by the interested actors. These kinds of UN-led operations often fall under the category of multidimensional as they integrate a long list of tasks such as: civilian protection, civil and military coordination, promotion of human rights, assistance during election, development of rule of law, demilitarization, free movement of materials and people and many others. While on paper assistance and multidimensional aspect of the UN aim look very promising, its track record is extremely polarized. On one side, we have what is commonly considered a great success, ONUSAL, and on the other great failures such as UNAMIR (Rwanda). ONUSAL (El Salvador) was such an important UN success that Boutros Boutros-Ghali called it “a pioneering experience… a new generation of United Nations operations whose purpose is post-conflict peacebuilding” (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). The mission had vast array of responsibilities that included that the two parties - the government and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) – were complying with their obligation, regulating all military movements, assisting the New Salvadorian police force, proving security in dangerous areas, investigating human right abuses and verifying the implementation of various recommendations (Holiday and Stanley, 1993). As said, the mission is considered a success and after the first new elections with the FMLN as a recognized party, it was closed. On the other side of the spectrum is UNAMIR, which from a mandate point of view was quite similar, but due to lack of funds, organization, personnel on the ground, endorsement from the interested parties and many other shortcomings was a disaster that culminated in a genocide.

Administration

The last purpose of the UN is Administration. This might be considered the most controversial and is by far the least common purpose of a mission. No mission after 1999 has had administration in its mandate. The basic idea is that the UN is temporarily tasked with assuming the sovereignty and administering a state. This entices that the transnational administration that is formed has powers such as enforcing the law, controlling the economy, hospitals, sanitation, schools and all the powers that are usually in the hands of a government (Caplan, 2012). There are many theoretical assumptions behind this kind of intervention, the main one being liberal peace. No liberal democracy will go to war with another liberal democracy, nor it will be easy for it to descend in a civil war as it has the structure to resolve conflict peacefully. Also, once developed a capitalist liberal market economy, the state will be tied to the rest of the global economy and will not be incentivized to declare war. The complexity of these kind of missions comes also from the very different approaches that there are to administration, which vary based on the political and theoretical assumptions behind them. The most famous one is the “New York orthodoxy”, named this way as it was the predominant approach in UN HQ. It was based on the intervention of international agencies that should push for a rapid economic growth thanks to market economy paired with a quick democratization and elections. A second one was the “Institutionalization before liberation”(Paris, 2004), that was more keen on creating strong and effective institution and waiting longer for elections, sometime even more than two years. This approach to administration was the one that was integrated in the UNMIK mandate. The transnational administration remained in charge for 29 months – 20 more than a similar mission in Bosnia – and worked mainly in economic reconstruction and national reconciliation. The economical approach had strong neoliberal feel even though the national institution after the election took a different turn. Historically speaking, there have been only four administrative missions, and all have succeeded at some level to ameliorate the living and economic conditions, together with the implementation of a democratic system, of the state where they were deployed to. Unfortunately, most of the times they have not done much to reduce violence, ethnic tension and government inadequacy. The main issue with the administration purpose is not practical but theoretical, as many critics see these kind of operations as a form of neo-colonialism that takes local populations out of the decision-making process and strips them of the ownership of their land and rights (Zanker, 2018)(Chopra, 2000). As there have been only few missions of this type, none in the last 21 years, and the very strong and legit criticism, it is unlikely that there will be more in the coming years.

4. Definition of Peace

Now that we have a background of the evolutions, history and purposes of the United Nations peacekeeping, it is necessary to define the concept expressed in the first half of the word, Peace.

The explanation of the concept of peace has always been a complex and contested one. Its definition both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view has many perspectives. We will first focus on the works and definition given by Johan Galtung. The idea of “negative peace” as expressed by Galtung: “the absence of violence and war”, is probably the most intuitive, where “peace” is defined not by itself but by the negative space left by the concept of violence (Galtung, 1969). The term peace is quite vague and, in this case, the only way to define it is by using another term that is non descriptive as well. At this point the discussion must change its focus on the definition of “Violence”. “Violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations” (Galtung, 1969, p.168). This statement helps expand the meaning of violence from physical incapacitation or actively damaging someone’s health to a much broader sense of what it is and can be considered violence. The two key words in that statement are “potential” and “actual”, as violence is conceived as the difference and what increases it between the first and the second. The best way to explain this concept is probably by using an example. If a young boy dies from a preventable disease such as pneumonia today because of the lack of a working health system, this could be considered a form of violence. Potentially, this death could have been prevented but in actuality it was not. This obviously changes the concept of violence based on the potential at that time in history. If the same young boy died in the middle-ages, it would not be considered as a form of violence as the potential treatment to cure him was not yet discovered.

This definition opens a whole new explanation for the concept of peace. Peace is not only the absence of direct violence such as assaults, war or riots but also the absence of indirect violence that is created by structural issues such as hunger, poverty, social inequalities or racism. Another important differentiation has to be made regarding the relation between the subject and the object of the violence. A clear and direct relationship can fall under what we usually identify as “personal drama” (Galtung, 1969). It is personal as there is a person or people perpetrating the violence. As an example, someone beating or assaulting another person. On the other hand, there is what could be described as structural violence, the simplest way to explain it would be through an example, such as: a country where the top 5% of the population has a much higher life expectancy then the bottom 50% - or more - and this cannot be pinned on a series of assaults or murders but is just due to the social inequalities. Based on this description, one could argue that there is also the possibility for an idea of “positive peace” that is more focused on cooperation, integration and development. This means that working actively to reduce social inequalities is a form of peace-making. Kenneth E. Boulding is probably the scholar that had the greatest impact in defining the concept of positive peace. Boulding states: "Both war and peace are positively definable states of a system, each with a characteristic set of properties. Neither is merely the absence of the other'' (Boulding, 1978, p.8). While Galtung bases his definition on the concept of violence and the gap between potential and actual, Boulding focuses more on the difference between conflict and non-conflict. The idea is that all human interaction can be classified in either non-conflictual, such as eating or walking, that involve peace, and conflictual, that might include war but that can be also resolved in non-war ways. In his own words: “all wars involve conflicts, some conflict involves peace, and all non-conflict involves peace”(Boulding et al., 2012 p.12). This means that there exists a sphere where there is conflict between states or people but it does not develop into war, where differences and problems can be in some way solved without recurring to war. His reasoning comes down to the self-image that countries have of themselves. Once this self-image is one of non-violence, meaning that the idea of responding with war or violence to conflicts does not even enter the minds of these nation states, then “Stable Peace” is achievable. The key word in this scenario is Stable, which indicates that the relationship between these two parties will not involve war in the foreseeable future. This theory can explain the relationship between the United States and Canada or the United Kingdom. And secondly it defines the existence of unstable peace.

For the future of this analysis, we will have to take into consideration not only the basic concept of physical violence, such as the number of casualties or assaults, but also the impact of peacekeeping missions on reducing the gap between the potential and actual and to fight both personal drama and structural injustice. This is extremely important as it gives a much clearer and definite picture of the impact that these missions have on both the population and the countries involved in the conflict that they are trying to bring to a status of peace. Secondly, it will be important to see if the peace that these groups are maintaining will develop in a stable or will remain an unstable peace.

5. Are the UN Peacekeeping missions effective?

Having now a clearer view on what Peace entices and how a peacekeeping mission works, the next logical questions are: do they work? Are they effective? And, what can we consider as effective? In order to answer these three questions, we have to work our way backwards. The first and foremost aim of a UN peacekeeping mission is fostering peace and possibly a durable one. As we saw in the previous chapter, the concept of peace spaces quite a bit and it is quite hard to achieve. Firstly, we will look at the ability of the UN operation to foster negative peace, in the sense of absence of war and the ability to maintain peace long after the mission has left the area. There are many quantitative studies that focus on this issue, all of them have problems finding the right data and adjusting it to external factors that might influence the result. Doyle and Sambanis (2000)’s findings are one of firsts to dive into the ability of the UN to reduce violence and create more stable peace. They found that when UN missions are deployed, the likelihood of democratic peace is increased. Together with this, it is also said that non-identity wars, higher development levels and international financial assistance, all have a positive impact on peacebuilding. They also specify that not all UN missions are equal, Multidimensional ones help shorten the duration of the war and create longer-lasting peace, while Enforcement ones have little to no impact in the peacebuilding part. The presence of military personnel helps reduce the day-to-day violence by interposing between the factions but it does not contribute to peace (Doyle and Sambanis, 2000). Fortna in 2004 shifts the focus on the recurrence of war and, while discussing its findings, makes some very important remarks on why the raw data can be misleading. Her study is based on the idea of comparing the recurrence of civil war when peacekeeping is deployed and when it is not and from those sets of data understand if peacekeeping is viable. Since 1944, whenever the UN has deployed a mission only 39% of the times war has resumed, compared to 42% when no peacekeeping has been deployed (Fortna, 2004). At first look, the UN interventions might seem not significantly able to prevent the recurrence of war, but this might be misleading. As Fortna notices, peacekeepers are rarely deployed when the conflict is concluded after a decisive victory and are often deployed when the death toll is high. This last point, at least in the UN’s history, is closely related to identity or ethnic conflicts that are seen are less likely to end in durable peace (Doyle and Sambanis, 2000). Another important point is highlighted by Diehl, he identifies the most common reason for failure of a peacekeeping mission in “…the opposition of third party states and subnational groups.”(Diehl, 1988, p.503). This is also backed up by data, treaties are second only to a strong victory in negatively influencing the recurrence of war. This means that if the peacekeepers are to succeed, all the parties involved must have an interest in peace, whereas often UN peacekeeping has been assigned to areas where treaties have not been signed. To summarize, figures have to be interpreted. Peacekeepers are sent to hard cases, and this has to be taken into consideration when doing the calculations. Fortna finds that when the “difficulty” of the situation is taken into consideration, the impact of the UN is much more visible. During the Westphalian period, the recurrence of war dropped by 57%, but it is during the post-Cold War era that the impact of the UN becomes much stronger with an increase in effectiveness of 84%. In the same study we can see that, confirming what Doyle and Sambanis found, the least effective missions are the enforcement ones. Peacekeeping is, at least statistically speaking, a positive influence on the deterrence of recurring war, meaning that it does foster peace.

As seen in the previous chapter, though, peace does not stop at the absence of war, we need to look at it also from the reduction of violence in general and especially towards civilians and non-combatants standpoint. Enforcement missions are, at least from what we have seen until now, the least efficient, but this is not the case when it comes to one-sided violence against civilians as they have usually the highest number of peacekeepers deployed. In the paper by Hultman et al. (Hultman, Kathman and Shannon, 2013), it is observed that when large groups of UN peacekeepers are properly tasked – meaning that they have a well-constructed mandate – they do prevent civilian killings. This is believed to be the case because the UN provides separation between the factions and directly takes part in protecting the civilians, but in order to do so and be present wherever required, they need a large force. A bigger mission also has more international resonance and shows that the UN is truly invested in bringing peace, helping the treaties discussions (Walter, 2002). Another important way that the UN can reduce the number of civilian deaths is by implementing UN Policing. While the UN blue helmets have a stronger impact in reducing the civilian causalities that are inflicted by the local military forces, the UN police works mostly behind the fronts, patrolling and protecting the local population that might be targeted for resources or for the recruitment of new troops. The presence of the UN police increases the relative cost for belligerents to attack non-combatants. When it comes to understanding which types of missions are more effective at reducing civilian deaths, Enforcement with the highest number of military personnel and Multidimensional, that usually have better mandate, high number of blue helmets and UN police, are the two to be considered the best. On the other side of the spectrum, Observer missions actually increase the likelihood of civilian casualties as they do not have the possibility to protect the locals. Strangely enough, while the presence of UN troops reduces military violence, it increases the criminal one. The theories elaborated by Di Salvatore are that the disarmament fosters the creation of a pool of people whose skills are easily usable in the criminal world, secondly the increased political security helps the development of both formal and informal economies. These two crate the conditions for illegal business and violent groups (Di Salvatore and Ruggeri, 2017). Fortunately, as we have seen, the presence of UN police and the strengthening of rule of law, help mitigate this issue. So, when it comes to reducing civilian deaths and mitigating the violence coming from newly created criminal business, Multidimensional missions take the lead compared to the Enforcement ones.

Lastly, we need to take into consideration the economic, health and human rights improvements or lack thereof. Unfortunately, there is a significant lack of studies on long term economic effects of the UN missions in country and it is harder to find causation. One study from Anke Hoeffler has found that while the UN missions are present there is a consistent increase in GDP growth for the first three years after the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission - oddly enough this is not related to either the mission’s size or mandate (Hoeffler, Anke; Ijaz, Syeda Shahbano; von Billerbeck, 2011). Another relevant research has been done by Caruso, his investigation focused on the ability of UNMISS to increase the cereal production year-on-year in the period between 2008-2010. It is proven that the presence of the blue helmets has had a positive impact, this is due to the increased security that they provided, both by reducing the attacks of the local militias and by helping the free movement of goods in the area (Caruso et al., 2017). Another recent study on UNMISS’s impact on the economic improvement of the area has found a strong connection between the ability on the UN mission to provide security and an increase in the general household economic well-being (Bove, Salvatore and Elia, 2021). Also, there are a few studies that focus on the ability of the UN missions to develop a good health system. Although some reports show a significant improvement in the public health field when a UN operation is deployed, this is mostly due to the fact that many Multidimensional missions have in their mandate to help ameliorate the infrastructures and institutions that are related to this field. Also UN missions, often in tandem with UN agencies such as WHO, tend to directly provide hospitals and medicines (Kim, 2017). When it comes to human rights, it is also quite hard to find a consensus and there are not many quantitative studies that explored this issue. While obviously when it comes to physical integrity, as we have seen previously, it is recognized that peacekeeping has a strongly positive impact, there are still many doubts when it comes to the rest of the human rights. When it comes to gender-related issues and sexual exploitation and abuse, Karim and Beardsley have found that if the number of female peacekeepers is higher or if they come from a country with strong gender equality, this helps reduce the problems and improve the general status of female locals (Karim and Beardsley, 2016). Finally, when it comes to democratizing a country, UN peacekeeping forces are considered to be a positive influence. In this case, as in many others, it is fundamental that the mandate is well constructed and there is a larger force. Again, as in many other cases, Multidimensional missions have the biggest impact. This is quite interesting as any other non-UN peacekeeping operation, such as unilateral ones – have a negative impact on the Freedom House and Polity IV values, that are considered to be good indexes of freedom and democracy. The increase in these indexes is interesting and should not be undervalued, but this does not mean a more equal and inclusive society (Steinert and Grimm, 2014).

While UN peacekeeping economic, health and human rights’ improvements still need to be studied more accurately and in depth, it is undeniable that it is an effective tool when it comes to negative peace. The peacebuilding part that is now part of most of the mandates needs to improve, but UN operations are certainly useful and help reducing the violence and death that a conflict can create, and this is not something that can be undervalued. While the UN evolves in a more of a peacebuilding force, we still need to address the first and most immediate issues: wars and conflict. In the next chapter I will propose some modification to the UN peacekeeping to become more inclusive and to have a better impact on that elusive positive peace.

6. Where do we go from here?

Peacekeeping has gone through many changes especially in the last 20 years. As we have seen in the previous chapters, there is still room for innovation and better implementation. In this chapter, we will look at what changes could possibly increase the ability of UN peacekeepers to create effective and durable peace. As shown before, the first point is to create a defined and comprehensive mandate. While the idea of better defining a mandate might seem obvious, it is by far the most important differentiator between the more and less successful missions. As show in the news recently (August 2021) the failure of the American peacebuilding mission in Afghanistan was strongly related to the lack of concrete, well-defined and attainable goals. In this particular case they were absolute ones and not measurable, the more political ones were abstract meaning that it was impossible to evaluate the actual status of the mission (Kissinger, 2021). Even though the spirit behind these absolute and abstract goals can be noble and positive, in order to properly work a mission needs obtainable and definable targets. This means that, when writing a mandate, it should include a series of goals that should be interconnected, measurable and well defined. Already this small change could impact positively the existing missions, by re-writing the mandate, and possibly the new ones. Staying on the subject of the mandate, not only the form is important, but also the content. As we have seen for the data and the experiences presented in the previous chapters, the wider the mandate, the better. Multidimensional mission can help achieve aspects of positive peace that the other interventions cannot. Having parts of the mandate that focus on rule of law, development of local and national institution, electoral help, social and economic projects can strengthen missions and make them more successful. An integrated kind of mission should develop a civil society and infrastructure that should be able to exist and function without any external help. This does not mean that western values should be forced upon the local population, it should mean that the peacekeeping mission should foster the development of a local economy and civil society and not force it. Also, these kinds of projects that align with the ones of specific UN agencies and other NGOs should be coordinated to avoid wasting funds and time. To recapitulate, on the improvements on the mandate, the UN should maintain the momentum that was born in the early 2000s and work on creating mandates that are integrated, multidimensional, well-defined, with measurable and achievable goals. This might seem self-evident, but as we have seen in the very recent past this is not always the case.

As we have seen, UN peacekeeping does succeed in reducing the violence and number of deaths and in most of the cases - especially in more recent missions – it also does foster a certain level of positive peace. Based on this, UN peacekeeping is underused and should be deployed more often. The UN – as many other international organizations – is subject to the influence and power games of states and it reflects these struggles when it comes to the creation of new missions and the decisions taken by the security council. In the last 10 years many interventions have been stopped by the UN security council permanent members. China and Russia have vetoed more than fifteen different resolutions for Syria since 2011 including the creation of the UNMIS, a new UN mission in Syria (UN Security Council, 2012). The US has vetoed countless agreements and interventions on the Israeli occupied territories in Palestine (UN Security Council, 2006, 2011) . Almost 80 years from the end of World War II, it is almost absurd that five states are “more equal” than others and have the ability to steer one of the – if not the – most powerful international organization based on their agenda, it reflects an imperialistic and neo-colonialist mentality that should not be part of the UN. Removing the permanent members and the outdated veto system should be one of the priorities of the UN. While this is easy to say, in practical terms it is an incredibly arduous challenge as none of the five will relinquish their power and position willingly. The first step should be to remove the veto power and maybe in the future also remove the permanent members.

Another important point that is related to the internal politics and power play of the UN is the presence of a standing army. This subject has been discussed many times in the past, Boutros Boutros Ghali has been one of the strongest supporters of this concept (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). The idea of a standing army is extremely controversial as it would create a series of new implication both politically and from an international law standpoint. The main advantages of having at least a small contingent are the quickness in responding to crisis and not being dependent on other countries to provide personnel. Deploying troops can be a long and complex system: “The Security Council will say how many military personnel are required, and UN Headquarters will liaise with the Member States to identify personnel and deploy them. This can take time – often more than six month...”(UN Peacekeeping, 2021). The UN Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System includes a number of troops that are already prepared that can - based on the willingness of the contributing country - be deployed in 60 days. However, even this system is not responsive enough in case of a natural disaster or if tensions arise quickly in an area, the UN should be ready to deploy a contingent in a matter of days and the standing army should be ready to work together and be already trained based on UN rules of engagement and should respond directly to the UN. This means that in case a peacekeeper is not respecting the mandate, local laws and/or UN Principles, they should be disciplined directly by the UN.

One more area of improvement is on the perception of peacekeepers. There has been an exceedingly high number of sexual abuse scandals with peacekeepers at the centre that have torn the image of the UN (Fortna, 2004). It is believed that this issue is closely related to their military background and the fact that most of the peacekeepers in higher position are males and tend to tolerate it more. In the last few years, the number of female peacekeepers has increased, and while this has not yet proven to be enough to significantly reduce the issue regarding sexual abuses, it is a start to reduce the “access gap” to higher positions for female peacekeepers and it should help avoid future sexual misconducts (Karim and Beardsley, 2016).

7. Conclusions

I set out to understand if UN peacekeeping is useful and effective and how it could be improved. The history and creation of it helped us understand its structural issues and showed us the missions that created the data used to analyse it. A brief history of UN peacekeeping showed us how it evolved together with the theories of the time, moving from the more state-focused approaches of the Cold War to the Multidimensional, people-focused approach of the late 1990s-early 2000s. I subsequently dived into what peacekeeping actually is and how it works, exploring the various approaches taken by the UN: prevention, observation, stabilization, enforcement, assistance and administration. For each one it was shown how it works, some of its applications and the issues and/or the successes that were brought by them. Once the picture about UN peacekeeping was clearer, the next point was to better define the concept of peace and its implication. The understanding of the idea of peace evolved from the simple negative peace to the more complex positive peace.

The history, the purposes combined with the definition of peace gave the base on which to judge the effectiveness of the UN and understand what works and what does not. Peacekeeping should not be a political tool for the “more equal nations”, it should not be taken lightly, it should always be well-funded and with well-defined mandates. Also, the mandates should look at more than just reducing death and physical injuries, they should be concerned with peacebuilding, human rights, social and economic development. Starting from this, analysis of previous existing papers was taken into consideration. It showed that at least from the death, violence and recurrence of war standpoint, UN peacekeeping is quite effective. Also, UN Policing and rule of law projects are usually quite successful in reducing causalities and creating a stronger state for when the UN leaves. Regarding the economical aspect, unfortunately not many studies are available. The existing ones point to a small increase in GDP while the mission is present and some specific projects have had some positive impact, all of these are mostly related to the increase in security in the country. Likewise, when it comes to human rights and gender-based violence, there is not a consensus. Some studies show a slight decrease in gender-related issues in missions with higher number of female peacekeepers. Moreover, UN missions are quite successful in increasing the Freedom House and Polity IV values of the interested countries, this indicates a good ability to help democratize interested countries.

Lastly, taken into consideration all the information from the previous chapters, I tried and see what the UN could do going forward to improve peacekeeping. The main points are to create better defined, precise, measurable and achievable goals. This part of the mandate is the most influential when it comes to dividing successful and failing missions. The second point is more structural. Permanent members and veto power have created many issues in the past, these two privileges should be progressively taken out of the UN chart. Furthermore, if, as we have seen, UN peacekeeping is to be considered useful, it should also have its standing army to be deployed at a moment’s notice. The last point is more connected to the perception of UN peacekeeping that should definitely be improved.

The UN has had its successes and its failures, it has been an integral part of the international politics and power plays for the better part of a century. It has been the stage for great discussions and clashes between powers. While it is far from perfect and has failed numerous times, I hope I showed that it is still a great tool in the hands of the international community. Even though it is still not fine-tuned when it comes to its ability to deal with positive peace, it has the capability, if done correctly, to reduce needless deaths and suffering and improve the conditions of people affected by conflicts. This is not trivial at all. I do hope that in the future UN peacekeeping will be improved and used more.

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