Over the last two week I have been in various meetings and conversations about about the effectiveness of @UNPeacekeeping, including most recently about #MINUSMA, and here are some ideas that I think are relevant for all UN #peaceoperations and #stabilization missions 🧵👇🏼
Note in this thread @UNPeacekeeping is a proxy for the full spectrum of UN peace operations, covering #SPMs & #peacekeeping operations #A4P #EPON 🧵👇🏼
1/17 In her book Power in Peacekeeping bit.ly/39zgMOG @HowardLise argues 14 peer-reviewed, quant studies find that, all else equal, peacekeeping save lives. She says it is one of the strongest findings in all of IR. Only the democratic peace enjoys such robust results 
2/17 The majority of these studies found that #peacekeeping has a positive and statistically significant effect on containing the spread of civil war, increasing the success of negotiated settlements to civil wars, and increasing the duration of peace once a civil war has ended
3/17 @HowardLise argues that since the end of the Cold War, 11 of 16 @UNPeacekeeping operations successfully ended and withdrew. These were Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia/Croatia, Guatemala, Timor Leste, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire & Liberia
4/17 Similarly, 3 of the @EffectivePOps published thus far (#AMISOM, #MONUSCO, #MINUSMA) found that these @UNPeacekeeping missions have made important contributions to preventing major civil war and large-scale conflict #A4P #EPON effectivepeaceops.net/reports/
5/17 However, the @EffectivePOps studies found that these missions did not have the resources to protect civilians at the scale expected of them, and they are unable to bring about an end to the violent conflict without a viable peace process in place bit.ly/38pCDr5
6/17 The @EffectivePOps study of #UNMISS found that it had the opposite result: @UNMISS made an important contribution to protecting civilians but had a limited effect on stopping the civil war in #SouthSudan #A4P #EPON bit.ly/2SKHEo1
7/17 these findings show the UN’s stabilization missions in CAR, DRC, Haiti and Mali have been less successful to date, compared to the rest of the Post Cold War record of @unpeacekeeping missions #A4P #EPON
8/17 In our book UN peacekeeping doctrine in a new era bit.ly/2HqvBqP Chiyuki Aoi @jornkarlsrud and I argue that these stabilization missions represent a more significant departure from @UNPeacekeeping doctrine than the UN Security Council and Secretariat recognise
9/17 See also @jornkarlsrud ’s The UN at War in which he investigates the move towards peace enforcement and counter-terrorism, and what consequences this development may have for @UNPeacekeeping #A4P #EPON bit.ly/38vcI1T
11/17 Many ruling elites prefer a no peace/no war outcome because settlement will require power sharing; there is income and benefits to them and those that seek their patronage from the international efforts; and they can blame the externals for not solving the problem
12/17 See @jan_pos1 ’s book on Political Unsettlement bit.ly/2wcA7Xs which frames peace processes as institutionalising formalised political unsettlement and points to ways in which it institutionalise forms of disagreement, and manage it rather than resolve it
13/17 Stabilization theory pre-suppose a legitimate state faced with an illegitimate insurgency. What if a state is captured by one set of elites linked to one identity group, and those excluded have genuine grievances ito marginalization & exclusion from state politics & economy
14/17 In that scenario @UNPeacekeeping can be seen by some as a partial actor defending one part of a society against another, and can be perceived as a party to the conflict (and thus a legitimate target) by the aggrieved party #A4P #EPON
15/17 The 3 core principles of @UNPeacekeeping (consent, impartiality and minimum use of force) is designed to prevent the UN from falling into this trap. I posit that the further @UNPeacekeeping moves away from these principles the more ineffective and unsuccessful it will be
16/17 It would be a pity if some members of the Security Council is willing to sacrifice @UNPeacekeeping as an instrument and practice for short-term gains measured ito stability vs sustainable peace, cost-savings, point-scoring against multilateralism and burden sharing #A4P
17/17 We can support peace operations by highlighting those aspects that have been effective, and cautioning against those that have proven to be ineffective by continuing to generate evidence of the factors that influence @UNPeacekeeping effectivness #EPON #A4P
A few more thoughts on #POC amidst ongoing conflict in relation to the exchanges with @GerritKurtz & @ecinqmars Similar to 🇺🇳stabillization, #POC amidst ongoing conflict is closer to #PeaceEnforcement than #peacekeeping The only consent is with the host state...
The 🇺🇳 can’t maintain political impartiality because it is tasked to take action against identified aggressors, which in many cases are also parties to the conflict with political interests, and the situation requires the proactive use of force to disrupt, degrade, defeat...
The research👆🏼 & the 🇺🇳 holds that @UNPeacekeeping is fit for PE. In our UN peacekeeping doctrine book we argue that if the UNSC nevertheless task the 🇺🇳to undertake such ops, then they need to develop a new stabilization doctrine for that purpose
