UN peace operations in a multipolar order: Building peace through the rule of law and bottom-up approaches

Abstract

UN peace operations need a new peacebuilding agenda that acknowledges both the transboundary nature of conflict drivers and the multipolar nature of the global order. This means casting aside the current stabilization approach, but also abandoning the pursuit of liberal peacebuilding of the unipolar era. Such a conflict transformation agenda would require UN peace operations to prioritize the rule of law and bottom-up approaches, thus creating the potential to be embraced by a much broader range of member states. In this article, we bring liberal peacebuilding critiques into a discussion with debates on the nature of the global order. Liberal peacebuilding critiques are rooted in the bottom-up problematization of international interventions and show what kind of peacebuilding is desirable. Conversely, the debates on the multipolar nature of the global order expose the top-down constraints as to what kind of peacebuilding is feasible. KEYWORDS United Nations; peacekeeping; peacebuilding; multipolar order; rule of law; bottom-up approaches At the turn of another decade, something interesting is happening with the United Nations (UN) flagship activity: peacekeeping. In January 2019, the UN underwent substantial institutional reform, deprioritizing the term peacekeeping and subsuming it under a broader umbrella of peace operations. The former Department of Peacekeeping Operations was restructured into the Department of Peace Operations and became more closely integrated with the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs through shared regional divisions (United Nations, 2019). This reform was

The future of UN peace operations: Principled adaptation through phases of contraction, moderation, and renewal

“…In the medium-term (5-15 years) peace operations are likely to go through a conservative phase as a result of the uncertainty and turbulence associated with a global order in transition (Osland & Peter, 2021). It will also still be affected by the financial tail of the COVID-19 crisis and the downsizing of the Trump administration.…”

“…Coexistence implies tolerance for a number of different ideologies or models. In the post-Cold War era and into the present, UN peacekeeping was used as a tool to promote the unipolar era's liberal peace ideology (Osland & Peter, 2021). In the medium-to longerterm UN peacekeeping will shed its liberal identity and adjust itself to reflect the values of coexistence, which implies a focus on political accompaniment, third-party impartial mediation, stability, and technical assistance with recovery and state-building that is perceived as neutral (i.e., free from ideologically pre-determined institutional models), so that national systems can emerge that build on local cultural, historic, and contextual foundations.…”

The Role of UN Peace Operations in Countering Health Insecurity after COVID‐19

“…Going further, with Davies and Rushton identifying how missions in reality already provide medical assistance where needed the Security Council should formalise the combatting of health insecurity by its peace operations by including specific tasks in the mandates. With the importance of building peace from below, working towards diverse security threats, such as health or environmental insecurity the Security Council would show crucial regard for the fact threats that permeate the lives of individuals ago beyond violent threats which can be countered by military force (Osland & Peter, 2021).…”

Conflict management or conflict resolution: how do major powers conceive the role of the United Nations in peacebuilding?

“…Looking at today’s world politics, scholars and practitioners have started to discuss the future of UN peace operations in the nascent multipolar world order (Cassin & Zyla, 2021 ; Coleman & Williams, 2021 ; de Coning, 2021 ; de Coning & Peter, 2019 ; Kenkel & Foley, 2021 ; Osland & Peter, 2021 ). Multipolarity is characterized by more diffused power structures.…”

“…More generally, scholars debate the influence of these trends on the future of UN peacebuilding. For instance, Osland and Peter ( 2021 ) argue that multipolarity will limit the role of the UN to tasks related to conflict containment. Similarly, de Coning ( 2021 ) observes that large-scale ambitious operations are less likely to be deployed in the medium term.…”