Political leverage and UN peacekeeping: the case of UNOCI’s withdrawal from Côte d’Ivoire

The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) is widely regarded as having been a successful peacekeeping operation. However, UNOCI bequeathed a number of challenges to Côte d’Ivoire which represented ‘unfinished business’ on UNOCI’s part. The continuing challenges are attributable in part to UNOCI’s limited political leverage vis-à-vis the sovereign Ivorian authorities, the consequence of which was partial and/or inconsistent implementation by these authorities of reforms designed to safeguard peace and security in the former conflict-ridden country. The experience highlights the limits of the political leverage that a peacekeeping operation may wield vis-à-vis a host-state government as it endeavours to implement its peacekeeping mandate, especially as closure draws near. Political leverage rarely figures in analyses of peacekeeping operations but given that peacekeeping performance is often evaluated in relation to the quality of the peace which prevails in a host state in the aftermath of a peacekeeping exit, the focus on political leverage adds an important factor of consideration to the evaluation exercise, in the case of Côte d’Ivoire and more broadly

Challenges for Multilateralism in a Pre-Post-COVID World

Multilateralism today faces numerous challenges. This article offers some reflections on those challenges—what they are and how they originated—and how multilateralism can be reinvigorated. It argues that though multilateralism is not a panacea, many of the critical challenges that confront humanity today—biodiversity, cybersecurity, global warming, mass migration, arms proliferation, and the regulation of outer space, as well as the spread of infectious diseases—can be met only with states and peoples cooperating more closely

Vacuum

THE morning sunlight filtered through the dirt-streaked window of Harry Ellis\u27 bedroom to the few items of furniture which held most of Harry\u27s belongings..

Book Review: "Across the Lines of Conflict: Facilitating Cooperation to Build Peace"

Howard Wolpe, to whom this book is dedicated, was an MIT-trained political scientist specializing in Ibo politics in Nigeria who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979. He served as chair of the Africa Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee and subsequently as U.S. Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa. When the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi, signed in August 2000, failed to bring an end to the hostilities there, Wolpe, who had helped to negotiate the accord, undertook to engage key political, military, and civil-society actors in Burundi in a series of workshops involving role playing, simulation, joint problem analysis, and other related exercises, with the aim of building trust and ultimately transforming relationships among the parties. These efforts are credited, in part, with having contributed to the establishment of the fragile peace in Burundi in 2005 that is holding (albeit only just) to this day. This volume represents an attempt to articulate the kind of approach that Wolpe employed in his peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts and to assess systematically the effectiveness of this approach. Edited by Michael Lund, a leading scholar of conflict and conflict resolution, and Steve McDonald, a former director of the Africa Program at the Wilson Center who worked with Wolpe in Burundi, Across the Lines of Conflict provides a systematic analysis of this important but largely underexamined dimension of peacemaking and peacebuilding. It is exceptionally well edited and achieves a coherence that often eludes edited volumes, beginning with the exposition of the conceptual framework by Lund, followed by case studies by country specialists of trust-building initiatives in six conflict-affected countries, and concluding with a discussion by Lund of the findings and implications drawn from his analysis of the case studies

Why peace endures: an analysis of post-conflict stabilization

This article is concerned with explaining why peace endures in countries that have experienced a civil armed conflict. We use a mixed methods approach by evaluating six case studies (Burundi, East Timor, El Salvador, Liberia, Nepal, Sierra Leone) and survival analysis that allows us to consider 205 peace episodes since 1990. We find that it is difficult to explain why peace endures using statistical analysis but there is some indication that conflict termination is important in post-conflict stabilisation: negotiated settlements are more likely to break down than military victories. We also consider the impact of UN peacekeeping operations on the duration of peace but find little evidence of their contribution. However, in situations where UN peacekeeping operations are deployed in support of negotiated settlements they do seem to contribute to peace stabilisation.publishe

Some implications of the advisory opinion for resolution of the Seriba-Kosovo conflict

Exploring the potential for conflict resolution inherent in an ICJ advisory opinion in general terms, the concrete prospects for mitigation and ultimately resolution of the Serbia-Kosovo conflict were examined by focusing on four major developments since July 2010. It is argued that the advisory opinion 1) facilitated further recognition of Kosovo’s statehood and its effects; 2) expanded international engagement in Serbia and Kosovo, especially on the part of the European Union; 3) promoted shifts in domestic opinion, politics and policy in Serbia and Kosovo leading towards the normalization of relations between the two entities; and 4) enabled the growing participation of Kosovo in the society of states, mitigating the Serbia-Kosovo conflict. In turn, a sustained pragmatism has emerged among Kosovar and Serbian leaders and their European and international partners that has provided a hopefully sustainable basis upon which the concomitant gains in stability can be consolidated and enhanced