In a stunning follow-up to his well-received The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping , William Durch looks at the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations as they took shape during the present decade. El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia all harboured explosive political situations that tested, and in some cases continue to test, the limits of the United Nations ability to keep peace in a world where the political situation is constantly changing. Anyone interested in international politics and peacekeeping will want to read Durch's newest.
'...the single most authoritative text on peacekeeping in the post-cold war era...the cases are comprehensive and incisive...and the authors bring sharp analysis, clean prose, and much experience in recent peace-keeping operations. Anyone wanting help navigating the labyrinths of today's internal conflicts should read this book.' - Stephen John Steadman, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
'...the single most authoritative text on peacekeeping in the post-cold war era...the cases are comprehensive and incisive...and the authors bring sharp analysis, clean prose, and much experience in recent peace-keeping operations. Anyone wanting help navigating the labyrinths of today's internal conflicts should read this book.' - Stephen John Steadman, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Langholtz examines how psychology and other social sciences can offer both theoretical explanations and practical applications in the resolution and amelioration of potentially violent international conflicts. Since the end of the Cold War and bipolar ideologies, the international community has been willing to intervene using approaches that are founded as much in psychology as in force and these remedies have not been confined to the violent periods of conflicts. This book examines psychological interventions and issues during three phases of conflicts. First, the book examines measures available in advance of a threatening conflict through early intervention and an examination of ethnopolitical issues, economic problems, and potential diplomatic solutions. Second, psychological facets of peacekeeping are examined: the selection of peacekeepers, psychological ambiguities of peacekeeping, and the numbing that comes with widespread suffering. Finally the book examines the psychological measures available to strengthen a cease-fire, deal with mines and related after-effects of war, encourage reconciliation, and hasten the return to a stable and durable peace.
Most literature on peacekeeping narrowly focuses on particular peacekeeping operations, and the political bargaining between peacekeeping participants. However, there is very little published research on why nations actually commit forces to peacekeeping operations. This new book meets this need.
This volume re-examines the evidence surrounding the rise and fall of peacekeeping policy during the first Clinton Administration. Specifically, it asks: what happened to cause the Clinton Executive to abandon its previously favoured policy platform of humanitarian multilateralism? Clinton, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Interventionism aims to satisfy a large gap in our understanding of events surrounding 1990s peacekeeping policy, humanitarian intervention and the Rwandan genocide, as well as shedding some light on US policy on Africa, and the issues surrounding the current peacekeeping debate. Leonie Murray takes an unorthodox stance with regard to the role of public opinion on peacekeeping policy, and delves deeper into the roles that the legislature, the military, and in particular, the executive had to play in the development of US peacekeeping policy in the 1990s. The conclusions reached concerning the role of the United States and the International Community in the face of the Rwandan Genocide are of particular note in their departure from the accepted wisdom on the subject. This book will be of interest to students of peacekeeping, international relations, US foreign policy and humanitarian intervention.
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This study explores the normative dimension of the evolving role of the United Nations in peace and security and, ultimately, in governance. What is dealt with here is both the UN's changing raison d'être and the wider normative context within which the organisation is located. The study looks at the UN through the window of one of its most contentious, yet least understood, practices: active involvement in intra-state conflicts as epitomised by UN peacekeeping. Drawing on the conceptual tools provided by the 'historical structural' approach, this study seeks to understand how and why the international community continuously reinterprets or redefines the UN's role with regard to intra-state conflicts. The study concentrates on intra-states 'peacekeeping environments', and examines what changes, if any, have occurred to the normative basis of UN peacekeeping in intra-state conflicts from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. One of the original aspects of the study is its analytical framework, where the conceptualisation of 'normative basis' revolves around objectives, functions and authority, and is closely connected with the institutionalised values in the UN Charter such as state sovereignty, human rights and socio-economic development. This book is essential reading for postgraduate students of IR and international peacekeeping organisations.
Grant Dawson's analysis of political, diplomatic, and military decision making avoids a narrow focus on the shocking offences of a few Canadian soldiers, deftly investigating the broader context of the deployment in Somalia. He shows how media pressure, government optimism about the United Nations, and the Canadian traditions of multilateralism and peacekeeping all helped to determine the level, length, and tenor of the country's operations. His findings will undoubtedly play a seminal role in informing scholarly debate about this important period in Canadian diplomacy and military engagement.
The UN has suffered from its earliest days as a result of persistent financial problems, which left it on the edge of apparent bankruptcy. This book looks at the history of the regular and peace-keeping budgets. It focuses on the role of the US, simultaneously the UN's biggest contributor of funds and its largest debtor. It examines possible solutions against the background today of the UN attempting to reform itself to meet the challenges posed by globalization and an increasing number of civil wars.
Using more than 600 UN documents that analyse the discussions in the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Secretariat, The United Nations and peacekeeping, 1988-95 presents innovative explanations on how after the Cold War UN peacekeeping operations became the dominant response to conflicts around the globe. This study offers a vivid description of these changes through the analysis of the evolution in the concept and practice of United Nations peacekeeping operations from 1988 to 1995. The research is anchored primarily in United Nations documents, which were produced following the diplomatic discussions that took place in the General Assembly, the Security Council and the UN Secretariat on the subject of peacekeeping in general and in the cases of Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia in particular. These large and complex operations were the testing ground for the new roles of peacekeeping in democratisation, humanitarian aid, resettlement of refugees, demobilisation of armed forces, economic development and advancement of good government.
