Predictive Peacekeeping: Strengthening Predictive Analysis in UN Peace Operations

The UN is becoming increasingly data-driven. Until recently, data-driven initiatives have mainly been led by individual UN field missions, but with António Guterres, the new Secretary-General, a more centralized approach is being embarked on. With a trend towards the use of data to support the work of UN staff, the UN is likely to soon rely on systematic data analysis to draw patterns from the information that is gathered in and across UN field missions. This paper is based on UN peacekeeping data from the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) in Darfur, and draws on interviews conducted in New York, Mali and Sudan. It will explore the practical and ethical implications of systematic data analysis in UN field missions. Systematic data analysis can help the leadership of field missions to decide where to deploy troops to protect civilians, guide conflict prevention efforts and help preempt threats to the mission itself. However, predictive analysis in UN peace operations will only be beneficial if it also leads to early action. Finally, predictive peacekeeping will not only be demanding of resources, it will also include ethical challenges on issues such as data privacy and the risk of reidentification of informants or other potentially vulnerable people

Mapping western Balkans civilian capacities for peace operations

Over the past several years the United Nations has increasingly emphasized the role that civilian capacities can play in post-conflict peacebuilding and called for member states to provide expertise. This special issue of the Journal of Regional Security will explore the civilian capacities of the Western Balkans countries and whether there is political will to respond to the call to deploy civilian capacities to UN peace operations and other international organizations. Looking at how Western Balkan countries train, roster and deploy civilian capacities, it will also explore whether increased cooperation in this area could be considered as a security community practice, nurturing bilateral relations and building cooperation in the Western Balkan region. The article finds that there is still a great gap between the expressed policy intent of providing civilian capacities to peace support operations, and putting it into practice. There is also lack of a strategic consideration of how the training and deployment of civilian capacities to peace operations could build legitimacy in international organizations and enhance regional cooperation among the states in the Western Balkans. The article recommends the initiation of a regional dialogue on training and rostering of civilian capacities, realizing synergies and furthering regional cooperation

Implementation in Practice: The Use of Force to Protect Civilians in United Nations Peacekeeping

Since the failures of the United Nations of the early 1990s, the protection of civilians has evolved as a new norm for United Nations peacekeeping operations. However, a 2014 United Nations report found that while peacekeeping mandates often include the use of force to protect civilians, this has routinely been avoided by member states. What can account for this gap between the apparently solid normative foundations of the protection of civilians and the wide variation in implementation? This article approaches the question by highlighting normative ambiguity as a fundamental feature of international norms. Thereby, we consider implementation as a political, dynamic process where the diverging understandings that member states hold with regard to the protection of civilians norm manifest and emerge. We visualize this process in combining a criticalconstructivist approach to norms with practice theories. Focusing on the practices of member states’ military advisers at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and their positions on how the protection of civilians should be implemented on the ground, we draw attention to their agency in norm implementation at an international site. Military advisers provide links between national ministries and contingents in the field, while also competing for being recognized as competent performers of appropriate implementation practices. Drawing on an interpretivist analysis of data generated through an online survey, a half-day workshop and interviews with selected delegations, the article adds to the understanding of norms in international relations while also providing empirical insights into peacekeeping effectiveness

Is liberal internationalism worth saving? : ad hoc coalitions and their consequences for international security

Published online: 06 February 2024Slow responses and blocked decision-making of international organizations provide opportunities for ad hoc coalitions to fill functional and political gaps. Compared to UN peace operations, ad hoc coalitions avoid gridlock and high transaction costs, they are fast to set up, can be task and time specific, flexible and easily dissolved. However, they also have much lighter human rights and financial accountability frameworks, a patchy record of longer-term impact and can contribute to a more fragmented response to armed conflicts and threats to international peace and security

Ad hoc coalitions : from hierarchical to network accountability in peace operations?

Published online: 28 November 2023Launching multinational peace operations are time and politically sensitive decisions that frequently involve the use of force. As a result, a host of accountability issues arise. To date, mainly backward-looking and hierarchical accountability measures have been developed to guide the implementation of multinational peace operations led by the most prominent actors in this policy domain: intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and ad hoc coalitions (AHCs). We argue that the existing accountability mechanisms have their flaws, which hypothetically speaking could at least be partly addressed by converting AHCs into network hubs with an emphasis on pluralistic and horizontal accountability practices. AHCs bring a diverse set of actors together and operate with a light institutional framework, in which actors meet on equal grounds. If used as network hubs, AHCs can facilitate an open information exchange and exchange of best practices

Particularized protection: UNSC mandates and the protection of civilians in armed conflict

The protection of civilians at risk in armed conflict has, since the late 1990s, become institutionalized at the United Nations (UN), gaining acceptance as a normative rationale for UN peacekeeping. However, the bulk of civilians in need of protection in armed conflict are unlikely to attain it. The article develops an argument on ‘particularized protection’ - particularized in that UN Security Council (SC) mandates are formulated and adjusted over time to direct mission protection to specific subsets of civilian populations, that is, those relevant to the UN itself, the host state, other states, NGOs and the media, leaving most local civilians receiving little effective protection. Particularized protection, we argue, is a result of the institutional dynamics involving actors producing mandates - the UNSC - and those providing protection - peacekeeping missions - whereby mandates are specified to direct mission protection to selected, particularized groups. We demonstrate these dynamics in two cases, Côte d’Ivoire and Somalia

Policy Entrepreneurship by International Bureaucracies: The Evolution of Public Information in UN Peacekeeping

The UN Secretariat’s role in the expansion of peacekeeping after the cold war is debated. Different theoretical accounts offer competing interpretations: principal–agent models and sociological institutionalism tend to emphasize the Secretariat’s risk-averse behaviour; organizational learning scholarship and international political sociology find evidence of the Secretariat’s activism; constructivism analyses instances of both. I argue that the UN Secretariat can be both enthusiastic and cautious about new tasks depending on the circumstances and the issue area. For example, UN officials have been the driving force behind the development of public information campaigns by peacekeeping missions aimed at the local population. During the cold war, it was not regarded as necessary for UN missions to communicate with the public in the area of operation: their interlocutors were parties to the conflict and the diplomatic community. With the deployment of the first multidimensional missions in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, UN staff realized the need to explain the organization’s role to the local population and provide information about UN-supported elections. In promoting this innovation, they played the role of policy entrepreneurs. The institutionalization of this innovation, however, was not an automatic process and required continuous advocacy by UN information staff

Linked ecologies and norm change in United Nations peacekeeping operations

How do norms guiding peacekeeping change, and who are the important actors in this process? Using sociology of professions and practice theory, this thesis seeks to advance constructivist theorizing of norm change in international organizations by a closer look at UN peacekeeping. The thesis argues that ambiguity is deep-seated in UN peacekeeping and that basic norms (grundnorms) and norms guiding peacekeeping operations are often in conflict. The thesis highlights the role of practices in two ways. First, special envoys and representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs) can act as norm arbitrators through actions in the field and have bottom–up influence on norm change in the organization. Second, various ‘ecologies’ such as think tanks and academia have, together with member states and UN officials, formed informal policy alliances to establish new norms, principles, and concepts such as ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘integrated missions,’ effectively constituting and driving norm change in the international system. This thesis sees these processes as social practices that advance change in the organization. With this contribution, the study further expands the understanding of which actors have agency and what sources of authority they draw on in norm change processes in international organizations. The UN can be seen as a competitive arena where informal policy alliances, or ‘linked ecologies,’ put forward ideas on how to solve policy issues. In a broad sense, the UN is an arena where informal alliances are formed around issues of common concern; and, with the financial support of donor states and knowledge production of think tanks, academia and the working level of the UN, ownership among member states is built in consultative processes