Understanding Peacekeeping. Alex J. Bellamy
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from relevant stakeholders.
In addition to understanding the different levels of analysis, it is important to note two general points about peace operations. First, whatever objectives peace operations are mandated to achieve, they always generate a series of unintended consequences. Unintended consequences refer to any developments directly generated by the operation that were not intended by those who planned it (Aoi et al. 2007). They are inevitable when large peace operations deploy to the complex social systems that characterize war-torn societies. Some unintended consequences can be foreseen and anticipated; others might be impossible to predict. Their effects can be politically positive, negative or neutral. Negative consequences have often captured the media headlines – such as peacekeepers engaging in SEA (see chapter 17) or introducing cholera to Haiti (as the Nepalese contingent did in late 2010). Some analysts also claimed peacekeepers were ‘among the primary mechanisms of spreading the disease [HIV/AIDS] at a mass level to new areas’ (Singer 2002: 152; see also Elbe 2003: 39–44). Although subsequent evidence did not support this conclusion, some reputational damage was done. More positive but apparently less newsworthy activities conducted outside of the formal mandate include peacekeepers donating blood to local hospitals, sharing food and medical supplies with locals, or helping to build bridges, roads, schools and children’s play areas. Negative unintended consequences can be damaging in several respects: they can cause suffering for individuals and communities where peace operations are deployed; they can reduce the ability of the peacekeepers to achieve their intended objectives; they can undermine the idea that peace operations are positive phenomena that should be encouraged and supported; and they can erode the legitimacy of the organizations that authorize and supposedly supervise them (Aoi et al. 2007: 8).
Second, peace operations generate a range of ethical and moral issues, challenges and dilemmas. These can be crudely divided into general issues and the range of personal ethical choices that confront individual peacekeepers. General ethical questions might be whether it is ethically acceptable that most peacekeepers come from some of the world’s poorest countries or that foreigners should govern locals during transitional administrations. Other moral dilemmas include the ethical basis for privatizing aspects of peace operations or weighing the ethical consequences involved if some peace operations provide support for authoritarian regimes. At a personal level, all UN peacekeepers are required to abide by the organization’s core values of integrity, professionalism and respect for diversity. What should happen to those who do not? In addition, peacekeepers will face lots of ethical choices during their deployments. For example, when should peacekeepers decide to intervene in local disputes? When and how should peacekeepers use force? How much risk should peacekeepers be willing to assume in order to protect local civilians? And why do some peacekeepers choose to participate in immoral, illicit or criminal activities such as sexual exploitation and abuse or trading commodities on the black or grey markets? In sum, when studying peace operations it is important to remember that they are sites of important and complex ethical issues.
This is made explicit by some of the major theories about peace operations. In the remainder of this section, we briefly sketch five of the most prominent theoretical frameworks for thinking about peace operations and their roles in global politics, namely, liberalism, culture, cosmopolitanism, imperialism and critical theory.
Liberal peace
Without doubt this has been the most influential theory in relation to peace operations. It is not hyperbole to say that both the theory and the practice of the vast majority of peace operations have been informed by a commitment to the liberal peace (see Paris 1997, 2002, 2004). At the interstate level, liberal peace is based on the observation that democratic states do not wage war on other states they regard as being democratic. This is not to argue that democracies do not wage war at all or that they are less warlike in their relations with non-democracies, only that democracies tend not to fight each other. In addition, liberal democracies are said to be the type of states least likely to descend into civil war or anarchy.
Exponents of this theory generally present two reasons to explain why that might be. First, through their legislatures and judiciaries, democratic systems impose powerful institutional constraints on decision-makers, inhibiting their opportunities for waging war rashly (Owen 1994: 90). These inhibitions are further strengthened by the plethora of international institutions (such as the UN) to which liberal democratic states are tied. Democracy prevents civil war primarily because it guarantees basic human and minority rights and offers non-violent avenues for the resolution of political disputes. The second explanation of liberal peace is normative and holds that democratic states do not fight each other because they recognize one another’s inherent legitimacy (Owen 1994) and have shared interests in the protection of international trade which are ill-served by war (Hegre 2000). Within states, the legitimacy associated with democracy makes it very difficult to mobilize arms against the prevailing order, reducing the likelihood of civil wars. In arguing that peace operations are informed by liberal peace theory, we mean that many of them have been mandated to stabilize war-torn territories by promoting and defending liberal principles of politics, economics and even society (see box 1.1).
Box 1.1 Advocates of liberal peace
There is an obvious connection between democratic practices – such as the rule of law and transparency in decision-making – and the achievement of true peace and security in any new and stable political order. These elements of good governance need to be promoted at all levels of international and national political communities. (Boutros-Ghali 1992: §59)
Democracies don’t attack each other … ultimately the best strategy to insure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. (US President Bill Clinton, ‘State of the Union Address’, New York Times, 26 January 1994)
The right to choose how they are ruled, and who rules them, must be the birthright of all people, and its universal achievement must be a central objective of an Organization [the UN] devoted to the cause of larger freedom … The United Nations does more than any other single organization to promote and strengthen democratic institutions and practices around the world. (Annan 2005a: §§148 and 151)
I believe that as imperfect as they are, the principles of open markets and accountable governance, of democracy and human rights and international law that we have forged remain the firmest foundation for human progress in this century. (US President Barack Obama, speech to the United Nations General Assembly, 20 September 2016)
Although liberal peace has been the dominant theory underpinning many contemporary peace operations, its application remains controversial for several reasons. First, many powerful actors around the world, including rising powers such as China, retain distinctly illiberal political preferences. Second, liberal reforms have often been rejected by powerful local constituencies on the receiving end of such peace operations. And, third, partly because many of the world’s peacekeepers come from countries without a domestic tradition of liberalism. The assumptions behind the liberal peace have also been challenged by scholars. Some deny the basic empirical assertion at the heart of liberal peace theory by pointing to wars between or within democracies or arguing that the dataset remains too small to draw statistically relevant conclusions (e.g. Mearsheimer 1994). Others warn that, while the goal is laudable, the rapid liberalization of post-war societies has destabilizing effects that undermine the chances of achieving stable peace (e.g. Paris 2004). Still others suggest the values underpinning liberal peace are not universal or causally connected to peace but reflect the ideological preferences of the world’s most powerful actors (e.g. Barkawi and Laffey 1999). Because of this, some realists argue that powerful states should not allow themselves to become entangled in the domestic affairs of others, except on the rare occasions where vital national interests are at stake (e.g. Mearsheimer 2018; Walt 2019). In response, defenders of liberal peacebuilding have criticized the critiques as faulty and made the prudential case that ‘there is no realistic alternative to some form of liberal peacebuilding strategy’ (Paris 2010: 340). It is important to recall that liberal ideals such as legitimate functioning states, democracy, economic