To understand the effectiveness of United Nations peacekeeping operations in providing the global public goods peace and security, it is important to research the incentives countries have to...Show moreTo understand the effectiveness of United Nations peacekeeping operations in providing the global public goods peace and security, it is important to research the incentives countries have to participate in these operations. Previous scholars have theorised that politically unstable states contribute troops to peace missions as an effort to decrease domestic coup risk. This thesis investigates the link between coup risk and troop contributions through a qualitative content analysis of coup risk in Nigeria between 1990 and 2020. The theoretical expectation was that governments increase their personnel commitments in peace missions when domestic coup risk is high. It is found that Nigeria experienced high levels of coup risk for the entire analysed timeframe, whereas increased troop contributions were only recognised between 2000 and 2013. The thesis thus challenges the existing theory on troop contributions as a coup-proofing strategy.Show less
This thesis asks why Canada became a global leader in peacekeeping in the 1960s and 1970s. The thesis is conducted through an analysis of both domestic and international causes that played a role...Show moreThis thesis asks why Canada became a global leader in peacekeeping in the 1960s and 1970s. The thesis is conducted through an analysis of both domestic and international causes that played a role in Canada's acquisition of a disproportionally large role within global peacekeeping. These causes are extensively researched using two case studies, being the United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Congo in the 1960s as well as the mission in Cyprus in the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, the thesis analyses the link between the United Nations and Canada on the peacekeeping front and discusses why it is that the UN came to rely on Canada so heavily for global peacekeeping efforts in the time period of the 1960s and 1970s.Show less
This thesis focuses on the peacekeeping partnership between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), in the context of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). It investigates the...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the peacekeeping partnership between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), in the context of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). It investigates the question: “How did the AU and the UN institutional (in)compatibility impact the effectiveness of AMISOM?” Both the practical and executive sides of the institutions involved, and the congruence between the mandate, resources, and activities undertaken are considered when evaluating the effectiveness of the mission. This is done using the congruence component of the analytical framework of Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON). This part of the framework describes the strategic intent, mandate and aims to understand whether the mission has achieved its mandated tasks, and the extent to which there was consensus about this among various stakeholders. While the mission had a clear mandate, the main form of logistical support, the United Nations Support Office for AMISOM (UNSOA), was not designed to do its job. Mainly because it had roots in the UN’s bureaucratic system, UNSOA was never able to meet the expectations of the mandate and objectives of AMISOM. The partnership between the AU and the UN was born out of the mutual recognition that alone, neither of them could cope with the multitude of security challenges facing Somalia. The mission had a peace-enforcement nature but was unable to successfully carry out its mandate and objectives because of the limitation of using peacekeeping logistics. The inability of overcoming the institutional differences between the two organizations has led to the failure to accomplish the mission’s mandate and the additional objectives and has led to an ineffective peacekeeping partnership that was not successful in living up to its full potential. For future peacekeeping partnerships, this means that working on a more equal and consistent relationship between the AU and the UN will likely improve the effectiveness of the collaboration and the mandate, objectives, and activities of the mission.Show less
Peacekeeping has become one of the most enduring traditions, symbols, and narratives that constitutes Canadian national identity and strategic culture since Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace...Show morePeacekeeping has become one of the most enduring traditions, symbols, and narratives that constitutes Canadian national identity and strategic culture since Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for creating the first peacekeeping force. However, upon closer inspection of Canada’s record on peacekeeping, contradictions emerge between the promise and practice of this national tradition. Why does peacekeeping persist as a tenet of Canadian identity and strategic culture when it no longer plays a prominent international role in peacekeeping? While perplexing, the theories of strategic cultural change and competing strategic subcultures provide the framework for addressing this question. This thesis finds that contradictions persist in the promise and practice of peacekeeping because while the Pearsonian Internationalist subculture that grew out of Canada’s peacekeeping achievements is no longer a dominant worldview, it endures as a potent vestigial influence that continues to strike at the heart of what it means to be Canadian and helps contextualize the efficaciousness of the new Robust Western Ally hegemonic subculture’s policy preferences. Through employing a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to reveal the mechanisms of power employed by the competing subcultures in academic, media, and political discourses, this thesis sheds light on how norms, narratives, and cultural factors that have clandestinely and conflictingly influenced strategic preferences on peacekeeping in Canada from 1991 to 2017.Show less
As the involvement of regional organizations in peacekeeping has significantly grown over the past decades, the relationship of these organizations with the United Nations has been reconfigured....Show moreAs the involvement of regional organizations in peacekeeping has significantly grown over the past decades, the relationship of these organizations with the United Nations has been reconfigured. This is particularly the case for the African Union and the UN, that set up their first peacekeeping mission with joint ownership in 2007 with UNAMID, the UN-AU hybrid mission in Darfur. The UN-AU relationship is not only determined by global-regional power relations, also postcolonial power relations play a role. As a result of these power relations, the AU is often perceived as being rather agency- and powerless. This thesis will counter this narrative, by studying the way in which the AU exercised agency over the set-up of UNAMID. It finds that while the AU was constrained by material capacity and the influence of powerful actors, it was still able to exercise agency and have influence on the UN, by using discursive strategies and the contestation of norms. Following these findings, this thesis advocates for a decolonial shift in the understanding of the AU that makes space for African agency and African contributions in international affairs, particularly, but not only, in peace and security matters.Show less
This paper aims to analyse the implementation of conflict prevention in the post-Cold War era and its resulting outcomes, guided by the question: why are some conflicts successfully prevented,...Show moreThis paper aims to analyse the implementation of conflict prevention in the post-Cold War era and its resulting outcomes, guided by the question: why are some conflicts successfully prevented, while others break out? More specifically, why have some hostilities been contained while at the same time the Yugoslav conflict broke out so violently?Show less
