Peace operations Flashcards

Question

reason for political liberalisation's failure in peacebuilding

Answer 1

Paris: creating a stable market democracy is a tumultuous, conflict-ridden, and lengthy process, particularly in the fragile political environment of a war-shattered states both democracy and capitalism encourage conflict and competition-indeed, they thrive on it. Democracy, for example, requires a politically active and involved citizenry. o War-shattered states are typically ill equipped to manage societal competition induced by political and economic liberalization, not only because these states have a recent history of violence, but because they typically lack the institutional structures capable of peacefully resolving internal disputes. In these circumstances, efforts to transform war- shattered states into market democracies can serve to exacerbate rather than moderate societal conflicts. o Problems arise, when political activity generates demands that cannot be channelled through existing institutions encouraging political activity can polarize the populace into a number of separated, potentially hostile communities. When a society is divided in this way, holding democratic elections-which are, by definition, moments of intense political activity-may reinforce societal differences and work against the goal of establishing a stable democratic system capitalism also encourages conflict, because it creates economic inequalities that have historically fuelled resentment and confrontation. Highly unequal distributions of wealth appear to be strongly associated with violent political conflict

Answer 2

Paris - the only success * Following a quarter-century of fighting between the South African army and South African-backed Namibian forces on one side, and the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) on the other, the United Nations supervised ”free and fair” elections in November 1989, which brought SWAPO to power. Peace maintained- elections held as scheduled in 1994. * South Africa withdrew its forces as part of peace process

Answer 3

* international assistance seems to have been instrumental in bringing the country’s civil war to an end + UN-run elections in 1993 * two former adversaries formed a coalition government. Distrust between these parties, however, has prevented their reconciliation- Cambodia effectively has two parallel national governments, with each party competing for authority and influence (unstable) * Although overall gross domestic product growth was a respectable 6.1 percent per annum from 1991 to 1995 (and 7.6 percent in 1995 alone), the benefits of this growth were felt primarily in the cities, thus widening the already large gap in living standards between cities and rural areas, where most Cambodians live Cambodia has experienced political tensions, human rights issues, and occasional outbreaks of violence, but not on the scale of a civil war. The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, has maintained power through elections, although there have been allegations of authoritarianism and political repression.

Answer 4

* International negotiators secured a cease-fire in 1991 between the warring Angolan parties, including agreement to hold multiparty elections in late September 1992. * The elections took place on schedule under international supervision and were judged to be “generally free and fair.” but neither candidate receiving the minimum 50-percent support required for a first-round victory * Savimbi, apparently fearing defeat in a runoff election, rejected the first-round results and resumed a full-scale civil war in January 1993 that was” as bloody as anything seen since independence. * Elections rekindled war

Answer 5

Authoritarian solutions would in effect institutionalize the political primacy of the factions that fought the war, thereby inhibiting the development of more moderate, cross-factional political groupings in the post conflict period. o because democratic governments are popularly elected, they come into existence with a measure of legitimacy or public acceptance that authoritarian regimes generally lack.

Answer 6

the division of a war-shattered state into territorially discrete, politically independent units- remove the source of conflict. Has been successful historically in stopping ethnic civil wars o Civil wars tend to be fought among interspersed communities – doesn’t work in practice.

Answer 7

* Delay elections until passions have cooled and belligerents disarmed. * peacebuilders should use the time leading up to elections to promote political moderation by establishing, and if necessary directly funding, citizen organizations and associations that cut across cleavage lines and exclude extremists who advocate for violence - prevent ethnic nationalists and exclusionists from monopolising * Build incentives that make moderation rewarding and penalise extremism * Peace organisations should work together - eg The United Nations and the IMF * Longer intervention- Most peacebuilding missions have lasted from one to three years- the U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan after World War 2 formally lasted ten years and seven years respectively,

Answer 8

In El Salvador and Mozambique, for instance, while the United Nations was urging the governments of war-shattered states to increase spending on peacebuilding-related programs, the IMF was demanding fiscal restraint.’

Answer 9

* overwhelming evidence from more than two dozen studies that peacekeepers: (1) reduce civilian and military deaths, (2) prevent the spread of violence, (3) help belligerents achieve peace and (4) help countries maintain the post-conflict peace - this is so significant and consistent that it is “one of the strongest finding international relations literatures to date”. esp striking as UN intervenes in toughest cases

Answer 10

Employed by Walter and Howard significant inverse relationship between UN peacekeeping and violence against civilians: the greater the number of UN peacekeepers committed to protecting non-combatants in these conflicts, the fewer civilians are killed + strongly related to less violence against civilians in all UN peacekeeping missions 1989-2010. military personnel and police save civilian lives by placing themselves between combatants, reducing direct hostilities and decreasing the incentives to target civilians as a tactic of war.

Answer 11

peacekeepers recruited from an ethnically and linguistically diverse range of countries and those who are culturally closer to local populations are more successful at reducing violence against civilians.- hypothesize that this type of diversity allows peacekeepers to communicate more effectively with the local population, helping to deter misconduct. multi- lateral UN PKOs (defined as those that include extensive civilian functions, economic reconstruction, institutional reform and election oversight) increase the likelihood that peace lasts 2–5 years after a war ends. For Doyle and Sambanis, this type of peacekeeping was effective because it signalled international interest in ending the conflict and offered badly needed aid and technical expertise to the parties

Answer 12

outside military intervention designed to aid the government leads to an increase in government-led genocide and mass killing. The same was not true of neutral intervention, which tends to exacerbate genocidal violence in the short term but diminish it over time

Answer 13

peacekeeping missions that deploy at least 1,000 military personnel can limit the spread of violence geographically. This is especially true as the number of deployed military troops increases: larger missions are the more likely to contain violence. - limit the geographic movement of violence in three ways: (1) peacekeepers make it more difficult for armed units from any side to move about the country undetected, (2) they establish protected areas against rebel attacks and (3) they decrease the willingness of government forces to use heavy-handed tactics to clear areas of rebels and their supporters.

Answer 14

combatants are significantly more likely to sign a negotiated settlement if a third party is willing to help verify or enforce the terms.

Answer 15

the more money the UN spent on post-conflict peacekeeping per year, the longer the post-war peace lasted. The effect was large: doubling expenditures reduced the risk of renewed war from 40 to 31 per cent.

Answer 16

the inherent paradox of state building: PKOs often compromise local sovereignty in order to establish a sovereign state.- efforts to establish legitimate and effective political economies in Cambodia, East Timor and Afghanistan have empowered post-conflict elites, unintentionally forging neo-patrimonial order rather than legitimate local democracy. *

Answer 17

peacekeepers in all UN missions hail from dozens of different countries. They do not train together before they deploy. They do not speak each other’s languages, or share interoperable material. - contingents of different nationalities interpreted the mandate to use force differently in the Congo + UN peacekeeping forces do not employ a standard military chain of command and control: a force commander from one country cannot order a battalion from another to neutralize a rebel group unless the government of the battalion’s sending country agrees

Answer 18

that is the diversity among the Blue Helmets deployed. For instance, where do the Blue Helmets come from? Does the mission consist of soldiers from two countries or from a multitude? o

Answer 19

Top leadership diversity refers to the diversity between the positions of Force Commander (FC) and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG). For example, is the Force Commander Swedish and the SRSG Indian?

Answer 20

Positive effect- the higher the internal diversity of UN peacekeepers, the fewer civilian casualties within a conflict.

Answer 21

o diversity can help mitigate civilian victimization and battle-deaths. Even though our case studies suggest that both negative and positive pathways could be at play, the quantitative analysis shows that, overall, top leadership diversity can be beneficial for mission effectiveness.

Answer 22

diversity between Force Commander and the peacekeepers. Does the Force Commander lead Blue Helmets of her/his own nationality or Blue Helmets from culturally, economic- ally, or linguistically distant countries?

Answer 23

o this dimension matters mostly by protecting civilians from victimization rather than resolving the fighting between belligerents. Holding all constant, missions with more Blue Helmets from the same country of the Force Commander experience lower monthly deaths of civilian, whereas high linguistic barriers between the military leadership and the troopers might jeopardize civilians’ protection.

Answer 24

distance between Blue Helmets and the local population i.e. do they speak the same language? Culturally similar?

Answer 25

o Less horizontal distance = better able to keep peace - greater geographic and cultural distances correspond to higher levels of violence against civilians and higher numbers of battle-related deaths.

Answer 26

in July 2016, in Juba (South Sudan) three days of intense fighting resulted in the death of many civilians, the deaths of two UNMISS peacekeepers, and threatened a fragile peace agreement. An internal investigation suggested that the heterogeneity of national contingents within UNMISS in terms of training, language, and military practices, could partially explain the disaster – too much diversity can cause issues.

Answer 27

(1) Missions may use limited force (in self-defense); (2) missions must obtain the consent of the warring parties before deploying; and (3) peacekeeping operations must maintain impartiality in the implementation of agreements, akin to the functioning of a judge who is not neutral or passive, but delivers judgments impartially – peacekeeping is separate from war fighting – political and humanitarian not military goals

Answer 28

Status has “ontological priority” over both authority and legitimacy. In other words, one must have a notion of hierarchical social status before one can determine which states have the right to issue commands (authority), and whether subordinate states feel those decisions ought to be followed (legitimacy). * The UN lacks enforcement capabilities and thus cannot coerce compliance in an anarchical interstate system. Yet powerful states—even the US—seek the UNSC’s approval before they use force. the council’s ability to legitimize the use of force stems from its functioning as an “elite pact.”. – shows the power of the UN - Legitimate domination is the “probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons.” The UNSC is the highest international authority for determining the legitimacy of the use of international force.

Answer 29

* One of the primary means of maintaining the status and legitimacy of small groups is “by behaving in ways that suggest high levels of ... commitment to the group.” The council has met frequently since the end of the Cold War, and veto use has plummeted, indicating group commitment. As one inside observer notes, “There is a clear interest in maintaining the council , once a solution or precedent is achieved, the text of the agreement is applied in future rounds of negotiations, even when the solution may not fit the new context, and even when the solution may appear suboptimal, irrational, or even pathological.

Answer 30

1999 war had raged for a decade * a leader was elected democratically; all major parties signed a US and UK-backed peace agreement in July 1999; and 13,000 Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) troops, mainly from Nigeria, were enforcing the peace. Alongside ECOMOG troops, the UN deployed a small, unarmed peacekeeping observation mission. * In May 1999, Nigerian citizens elected a president who had campaigned on the promise to remove Nigerian troops from Sierra Leone. A potential security vacuum loomed.

Answer 31

Nigerian troops removed from Sierra Leone all members of the UNSC, including the UK, Sierra Leone’s former colonial power, supported continuing a UN Chapter VI peacekeeping operation. The elected government of Sierra Leone requested a Chapter VII mandate for the UN to use force in the absence of alternatives. * The UNSC authorized the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as a Chapter VII UN mission with 6,000 troops, granting it the responsibility to take “necessary action" o There was a mismatch between mandate and means- Less than one year later, rebels took 500 members of the UN’s force hostage, release. With council approval, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sent British Special Forces to conduct an efficacious peace enforcement action: they freed the UN hostages and defeated the rebels. Uk not UN enforced peace o Once there was a peace to keep, and the numbers of UN peacekeepers increased to 17,500, the UN was able to implement its mandate. By December 2005, the mission departed a peaceful, recovering Sierra Leone.

Answer 32

Since issuing the Chapter VII force mandate in Sierra Leone, the UNSC has replicated the mandate in all sixteen post-1999 multidimensional UN peacekeeping operations. . It became a reflex ... no one thinks about the rationale.

Answer 33

post Sierra Leone reflex * Violent conflict broke out in the DRC in 1997 MONUC received roughly the same Chapter VII civilian protection mandate and roughly the same number of troops as UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone. Given, however, that the DRC’s population is approximately ten times that of Sierra Leone’s, and its land mass more than thirty times larger, parity was not a rational response. * UN peacekeeping troops in DRC have the mandate to kill rebels (which they do with extreme reluctance), but not the authorization to negotiate with or arrest them. Of all the means available to peacekeepers, members of the Secretariat proposed that these latter two may best enable troops to protect civilians the UN began its peacekeeping missions in DRC nearly twenty years ago, yet the war has dragged on, millions of people have perished, and violence against civilians—including rape—has not abated

Answer 34

* There is a large and growing literature arguing that “status” is a driving force in Russian foreign policy in general, and that cooperation with the UNSC and participation in UN peacekeeping operations are important mechanisms “for maintaining Russian great power status.” Russia has consistently opposed UNSC enlargement since it could “dilute the country’s power and have serious consequences for its international status and prestige.” As the late Russian Ambassador to the UN stated, “We are against everything which is tampering with the veto powers of the Security Council.”

Answer 35

* Since 2012, Russia and China have dissented on UNSC resolutions on Ukraine, and some on Syria. Concurrently, however, they have continued agreeing on most other issues before the council. All P-5 members agreed to every single proposed new Chapter VII force authorization The American-led efforts to bomb Serbia/Kosovo in 1999, and invade Iraq in 2003, challenged Russian support of the UNSC. yet the P-5 resumed cooperation after both episodes of disagreement. Following initial objections to US and NATO enforcement action in Kosovo, Russian leaders eventually even agreed to send ground troops to participate in NATO operations

Answer 36

* 39 missions in 1999, only 11 in 1965 o Multidimensional peacekeeping gained prominence amid the shifting international context of the late 1980s into the early 1990s. The objectives of multidimensional peacekeeping operations are to promote the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements and to assist in building a sustainable peace. The tasks typically added to traditional mission mandates include humanitarian assistance; monitoring human rights; the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants (DDR)

Answer 37

a rise in demand and a rise in supply, linked to the systemic change of the post-Cold War international system. successful missions of the late 1980s and early 1990s increased confidence in the utility and effectiveness of peacekeeping operations as an instrument available to the international community and individual countries. peacekeeping is a foreign policy tool

Answer 38

“costs lie where they fall”—contributing countries send their personnel and equipment, and cover the associated costs Personnel contributions, which include military, police, and civilian personnel, are voluntary for both UN and non-UN missions. For UN missions, * UN peacekeeping spending rose tenfold from an annual average of $208.5 million in the 1980s to $3.5 billion in the 1990s, and increased again to $8 billion in 2016/2017-

Answer 39

contributing countries are compensated at a rate of more than $1,332 per peacekeeper per month (United Nations, 2017e). Hence, UN compensation can imply that some countries with low costs for their troops can even earn money by sending them to UN missions.

Answer 40

* Since 1995, non-Western states have become the main personnel contributors to UN peacekeeping missions. The list of prominent non-Western donors include not only Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India but also Nigeria in the early 2000s, and later Ethiopia. From 2000 to 2014 Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India remained the top three contributors of UN personnel. o The rising peacekeeping contributions of these non-Western countries are often explained by referring to the positional or status gains expected from participation in such activities. Another line of argument suggests that particularly developing states such as Bangladesh contribute to UN peacekeeping to receive the financial compensation

Answer 41

greater interest in certain regions than others, depending on their foreign policy priorities. continent always lies below its worldwide average, providing between 40% (1991) and 1% (2010–2012) of all peacekeepers in Africa. This proportion stands in contrast to its high contributions to missions in the Middle East (between 65% in 1990 and 35% in 2015–2016) as well as missions in Europe (between 40% in 2002–2004 and 93% in 2016)

Answer 42

greater interest in certain regions than others, depending on their foreign policy priorities. Asia undersupplies missions in the Middle East but usually oversupplies missions in Asia and Africa, compared to its worldwide share.

Answer 43

more gender-equal societies have a significantly higher capacity for benefitting from the international support provided. female participation - at least at the local level - in post-conflict reconstruction can help UN-led peace missions to overcome some of the many hurdles that frustrate the establishment of a durable peace. The policy implication is that by allowing women the opportunities to express a voice in the peacemaking process and eliciting broader domestic participation, UN-led operations can draw on additional forms of social networks that often are quite distinct from social and political elites.

Answer 44

research that uses a negative definition of peace - peace as absence of violent conflict - disregards the fact that there might not even be 'peace' for women since their security and political roles have not been an integral part of the peace proces

Answer 45

women's participation in military components deployed in UN peacekeeping. They find that women personnel are primarily sent to less hostile environments rather than in theatres of operation where violence against local women, in accordance with international policy, would have warranted a higher degree of female military presence peacekeeping might contribute to absence of women and idea there might not be peace for women by excluding women's participation and not considering the gendered aspects of security.

Answer 46

612 Liberian national police officers randomly assigned to groups with different compositions of male/female staff. when men are outnumbered by women in groups, they become more aggressive highly skilled officers of either gender are better at interpreting crimes as gendered when women are allowed to participate in the process. without emphasis on the training of staff, especially women, gender balancing can be counterproductive and reinforce gender stereotypes

Answer 47

might result in a dangerous culture of dependency among the local population highly problematic from a liberal ethical standpoint as well.- Postwar reconstruction Is not inherently exploitative but rather powerful interfering nations interfere in a deliberately paternalistic way, constraining the policy options of domestic political actors for the target’s society’s own punitive benefit

Answer 48

liberalism can be identified with an essential principle: the importance of the freedom of the individual. - belief in moral freedom (important ethically) and US etc proclaim to be liberal so pragmatic viewpoint too * International paternalism that aims to civilize foreign societies and their inhabitants is plainly unacceptable from a present-day liberal standpoint.

Answer 49

If narrowly circumscribed and adequately managed, paternalistic interference can be freedom-enhancing under certain conditions * I suggest that full-scale international trusteeship can be justified only so long as conditions on the ground are genuinely ‘‘outlaw’’—that is, so long as security remains volatile and basic rights, including the right to life, are systematically threatened o since any obstacles to political order and self-rule in the aftermath of violent conflict are inherently political (that is, resulting from mutual fear among the local factions and the lack of adequate governance structures), they can be gradually overcome with the help of various confidence-building measures and external assistance aimed at institutional reconstruction. o During the early postwar transition phase direct accountability to the local population may be unwise and indeed impossible to achieve, due to the need to protect political minorities and the lack of appropriate institutions capable of aggregating domestic political preferences. o Outright military intervention is justified only under extraordinary circum- stances, notably in the face of actual or anticipated mass killings of innocent human beings.

Answer 50

* Once basic security has been reestablished, a lower degree of paternalistic interference continues to be justified until new domestic governance structures become entirely self-sustaining. During this second phase of postwar reconstruction external actors ideally ought to share responsibility for law-enforcement and administration with domestic authorities, which implies in practice that domestic and international officials should jointly approve all major decisions. There are several objective indicators that the security situation has improved beyond the point where full-scale trusteeship is acceptable, such as the setting up of basic power-sharing institutions, the disarmament and demobilization of former combatants, and the establishment of (at least) a rudimentary national army and police corps eg letting domestic officials (representing, for instance, the country’s main ethnic or religious groups) and international civil servants (representing multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as major donor governments) work together in collegial decision-making bodies. Each representative should be given one vote on all major issues, with decisions adopted by absolute majority. Initially, there should be an equal number of domestic and international representatives on such bodies; over time the number of international officials ought to be gradually reduced, in line with the postwar society’s increasing capacity to effectively manage its own affairs