Peace Missions as an Element of International Security

Peace missions in the modern world are inextricably linked to the political and social processes taking place in specific regions of the globe.
When looking closer to the more than fifty-year history of international peacekeeping operations, write MARIAN KOPCZEWSKI and JACEK NARLOCH, it should be noted that as time passes, they undergo constant transformations. Their types, goals, and ways of implementation are changing. That is because the environment in which such operations are carried out is changing, they write in ‘Peace missions as an element of international security’, published in the Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces. 
Peace missions are also transforming the goals and priorities of local and international communities. Permanent modification is also subject to threats in the modern world.
The authors note that peace missions are conducted under ever-changing social, economic, and political conditions. “They must be flexible so that they can adapt to new challenges. Success is never guaranteed because the tasks related to maintaining peace are carried out in challenging conditions.” 
The success of the peace mission depends on many factors, such as the composition of the peacekeeping mission (military personnel, police, civilian employees), logistical support, entrusted tasks, and the environment in which the peace mission operates.

Staying the Course: Funding Effective UN Responses to COVID-19 While Protecting the 2030 Agenda

Development financing has come under unprecedented stress in only a few months, as the world experiences one of the most rapid and damaging pandemics in human history. The socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 emphasize that the pandemic is not only a health crisis, but a human one that threatens to reverse decades of progress in the fight against poverty and exacerbate high levels of inequality within and between countries.

This is why responses to this pandemic have to not only mitigate the immediate threat to all citizens’ health and livelihoods but also make investments in ways that strengthen global resilience, prosperity and sustainability, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation states in a recent report.

Titled ‘Staying the Course: Funding Effective UN Responses to COVID-19 While Protecting the 2030 Agenda’, aims to support United Nations Country Teams, UN Member States and their partners to effectively use financial resources to respond to the immediate impact of the pandemic, while safeguarding progress already made towards Agenda 2030.

The report shows how responses to the pandemic need to be flexible: country and location specific solutions are essential. With that in mind, it considers how at country-level the leadership role of the UN Resident Coordinator system provides a platform for effective UN cooperation with the Member State and its partners. 

“This role is highly relevant to the current health emergency response and the local knowledge of the participating UN agencies is a source of strength for tackling the pandemic,” the report states. 

There have been previous global health emergencies and UN Country Teams can build on prior experience to make effective responses to the current situation. The report argues that this knowledge needs to be firmly anchored with local actors and UN staff. 

Funding remains a central issue in tackling the pandemic and is the focus of the report. In that vein, the report seeks to raise awareness of the Funding Compact which was welcomed by both UN entities and UN Member States in 2019.

“The Funding Compact should be seen as the foundation for scaling up the response to the pandemic in an effective and transparent manner.”

The report also asks whether current funding is sufficient and in a form that enables UN Country Teams to rapidly reallocate funds in response to the emergency. It explores the different types of funding available, the commitments of Member States to finance the various modes of funding, and the current situation regarding the funding that is actually available.

Core funding and voluntary contributions, unearmarked, are clearly the most flexible of financial resources, allowing country teams to rapidly reassess where funding is most needed and more easily reallocate to the new priorities. “The gap between intentions, commitments and funding is striking and is a challenge for the local responses to the pandemic and the longer-term challenge of building back better.”

The Funding Compact is seen as the foundation for scaling up the response in an effective and transparent manner, giving visibility to the inputs of the Member States. The report further argues that at country level the expectations of UN leadership and coordination, specifically the UN Resident Coordinator System, need to be met, with local strategizing and repurposing of funding in response to COVID-19 in rapid consultation with all partners.

There are positive reports from the country level of coordinated funding dialogues resulting in unified action. However, there are reports of the response sometimes being unilateral and uncoordinated, risking the waste of resources. Despite this, Member States’ expectations of UN coordination and leadership at country level remain high.

Finally, the report argues that the Funding Compact commitments can only be achieved through mutually responsible leadership, between funding UN Member States and implementing UN entities. “Indeed, scaling up of available funds is as crucial as optimizing available funds.”

At both the global and local level there is a need to remain focused on aligning global financial systems with the Sustainable Development Goals so that countries emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic can be supported to rebuild with resilience and the global plan for sustainable development remains in focus.

Institutional Development of the UN Secretariat

As the United Nations celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it becomes pertinent to assess the performance of the UN Secretariat so far. BOB REINALDA takes on the question in a research article in the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations.

“The institutional development of the secretariat of an international organization (IO) depends on the leadership displayed by the executive head and senior staff and on the political settings such as the constitutional leeway, the selection of its main functionaries, the conditions set for activities, and the allocation of resources,” he writes in the article, ‘Institutional Development of the United Nations Secretariat’. “The better the secretariat is managed, the stronger the leadership capacity of the organization’s executive head will be.” 

However, REINALDA adds, it may be questioned whether this same expectation regarding effective management can be applied to the UN. 

When states create IOs, the negotiation results are carefully recorded in the constitution. However, constitutional sections on the secretariat and staff are relatively short and lack detail, which implies that secretariats need to be elaborated by their staff who are given some room to maneuver to do so (in principal-agent theory referred to as ‘agency slack’ or ‘slippage’). 

“This is also true of the UN Charter, with only 5 out of 111 Articles discussing the Secretariat and a major administrative role for the first and successive Secretaries-General.” 

IO secretariats are hierarchically organized organs whose leadership sees to the organization’s continuity, seeks to devote itself to its objectives, runs the headquarters and field missions, and represents the organization vis-à-vis other actors. Secretariats encounter limitations, among them political restrictions and insufficient resources. Playing a role of its own in world politics may not be obvious for IOs, given the major powers’ inclination to curb that role, but executive heads have several assets available to act independently such as their good offices and the IO’s bully pulpit. 

“Since most literature on the UN Secretariat focuses on external, or political, leadership, I examine here the internal, or administrative, leadership,” REINALDA writes. 

When the UN was first established, a choice was made to have one secretariat to serve all principal organs. The Secretary-General is both a political figure, given the opportunity to bring threats to international peace and security to the attention of the Security Council, and the UN’s chief administrative officer. The December 1945 Report of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations stipulated that the Secretary-General’s choice of higher staff and his leadership largely determine “the character and the efficiency of the Secretariat as a whole,” mentioning aspects such as team spirit, moral authority, and Member State confidence. 

The Secretary-General may assume roles as a mediator and an informal adviser to governments, but also will be called on, when exercising administrative duties, to make decisions “which may justly be called political.”

REINALDA assesses the Secretariat’s institutional development, through analysis of the administrative qualities of eight former Secretaries-General, with a focus on how they strengthened the UN Secretariat and how they weakened it.

“No fewer than six out of eight former UN Secretaries-General showed poor administrative leadership of the Secretariat, particularly regarding issues that require specific competences such as staffing, finances, and team coherence,” the author states. 

Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General, carved out the Secretary-General’s administrative role, but he weakened it by his troubled staff relations and his betrayal of the Secretariat’s independent character, REINALDA states. The sequence of four weak administrators (U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali) during a period of thirty-five years (1961–1996) considerably and continuously enfeebled the Secretariat’s institutional development, which can be attributed to their apparent lack of administrative skills and their understanding of UN finances. Ban Ki-moon’s administrative record was also weak. 

“Only two Secretaries-General had obvious administrative leadership qualities and succeeded in strengthening the Secretariat: [Dag] Hammarskjöld, because he enjoyed administration, and [Kofi] Annan, who profited from knowing the organization from within,” the author notes. Unlike the others, both also mastered intraorganizational relations, particularly with the General Assembly and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. These relations are crucial, he stresses, given the Assembly’s inclination to control the Secretariat and to approve new expenditures resulting from what happens in the world, particularly when reform efforts are being made with austerity.

This poor administrative leadership outcome fits some general patterns observed in the literature regarding IO administration, REINALDA states. Trust, confidence, expertise, knowledge, information, and persuasion are crucial skills to the constructive workings of secretariats. But IOs have a relatively poor personnel management record.

Notwithstanding the states’ potential interest in having weak executive heads, the selection process of the UN Secretary-General should from an institutional perspective value not only issues such as gender, but also administrative qualities regarding staffing, finances, and team coherence to break away from the continual process of reform. 

To end the UN’s poor administrative record, particularly in a world with multilateralism under serious pressure, there should be a greater control of internal developments (Secretariat- and UN system-wide).

Reinalda, B. (2020). Institutional Development of the United Nations Secretariat, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(2), 325-339. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02602005

The Rise of Counterterrorism: A Fourth Pillar for the UN?

Seventy-five years ago, the Charter of the United Nations established a new institution with three founding pillars: peace and security, human rights and development.

Over the past 20 years, however, a fourth pillar – counterterrorism – has begun to emerge, through multiple UN Security Council resolutions, a global strategy from the UN General Assembly, the rise of the countering or preventing violent extremism agenda, and the creation of a stand-alone UN Office of Counter-terrorism, ALI ALTIOK and JORDAN STREET write in a new discussion paper.

In ‘A fourth pillar for the United Nations? The rise of counterterrorism’, published by Saferworld, the authors explore the current effects and future implications of the UN’s embrace of counterterrorism, given the mounting evidence of the harmful impacts of this agenda worldwide.

“It is the duty of all states to protect their citizens, and states do have a legitimate right to defend themselves from both external and internal threats,” ALTIOK and STREET write.

“Globally, however, counterterrorism has become many states’ primary pretext for violating human rights in the name of security, portraying particular groups as a security threat. Education and empowerment for peace programs have mutated into tools for preventing young people’s

radicalization leading to violence.” 

Directly and indirectly, peace operations now play a growing role in combatting terrorism, the authors state. Mediation, peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts by the UN and UN partners are being criminalized, discouraged and crowded out. 

“Given that the UN’s work on peace, development and human rights requires building trust and legitimacy with people and communities in an increasingly authoritarian and conflicted world, such approaches put the UN’s effectiveness on the line.

ALTIOK and STREET find that the compromises the UN has struck have come to threaten its ability to uphold its Charter, putting the effectiveness of its work for peace, rights and development on the line. They identify three overarching steps UN leadership and member states can take: 

• Refocus UN strategy on peace, rights and development through stronger processes for analysis, strategy and program development.

• Protect UN credibility and impact by strengthening guidance, oversight and safeguards and standardizing the use of terror-related terminology.

• Turn evidence and experience into improvement.

The United Nations at 75: Managing and Reshaping a Changing International Order

The United Nations is marking the 75th anniversary of its founding amid a rapidly changing world order. What is the future of the organization and multilateralism more generally? 

Despite the manifold challenges to multilateralism, state AMITAV ACHARYA and DAN PLESCH, there are grounds of hope for the future of the United Nations. 

First, the demand for multilateralism has varied, the authors write in ‘The United Nations: Managing and Reshaping a Changing World Order’, published in the journal Global Governance.

In the United States, both the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations retreated from multilateralism, although to a lesser extent than Donald Trump. Domestic politics can be a double-edged sword insofar as support for the UN is concerned. “Here is a striking example: despite Trump’s rhetoric against multilateralism, the US Congress has kept funding for the UN stable,” ACHARYA and PLESCH state.

Second, the demand for multilateralism is driven by a combination of strategic, normative, and functional logics. If the idea of multilateralism as good and desirable for its own sake is discarded, then the strategic and functional reasons for it might persist or even increase to compensate for it. Rising powers such as China and India, along with traditional powers, see multilateralism as important to their status and influence.

Transnational challenges defy national boundaries, which no single nation or bloc can solve on its own. “This reality does not itself sustain multilateralism since not all agree on its importance. But this also means that the need and demand for multilateralism is not just a moral imperative, but also a practical necessity.”

Third, the demand for multilateralism varies across issues, according to the authors. A study published in 2016 showed that while demand for global governance might be strengthening in the need to address climate change, human rights, global security governance, and mass atrocities, it is weakening in health, trade, and even possibly finance (where it may be static after having risen in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial turmoil). 

Also, in some areas such as trade and finance, the demand for global governance is crisis driven. “Understanding these variations across issue areas and time is important in generalizing and devising ways of addressing challenges to the UN and its role in global governance.”

Fourth, while the decentering and fragmentation of multilateralism can create confusion, increase transaction costs, and possibly lead to reduced effectiveness of existing UN-based global governance institutions and mechanisms, it is also clear that fragmentation is driven by the demonstrated weaknesses and failures of existing mechanisms and their lack of normative and performance legitimacy. 

In this context, the emergence of new actors and frameworks of multilateralism due to the proliferation of new actors is not necessarily at the expense of the UN. “This is not a zero-sum game, but a positive-sum one, one that offers considerable scope for divisions of labor,” ACHARYA and PLESCH state.

For example, human rights laws today are enforced not only in international courts, but also through criminal prosecutions in domestic courts of former state officials, where both international law and domestic criminal law are used. 

The International Criminal Court has been joined by more than two dozen international enforcement courts in the world enforcing human rights law. This promotes human rights around the world. 

Some bilateral and plurilateral arrangements create stricter standards for intellectual property protection and tougher enforcement penalties for intellectual property infringement than existing Trade-Related Aspects on Intellectual Property measures. Hence, they support the goals of global trade governance, if not its primary multilateral institution. 

In finance, a key development is the emergence of ‘cooperative decentralization’ as a form of fragmentation, resulting from the 2008–2009 financial crisis. These regional and plurilateral financial arrangements worked with the International Monetary Fund. Opinion is divided on the benefits and costs of this form, with critics skeptical of their ability effectively contain crises while others see them as durable and positive forces in global financial regulation.

In climate change, the authors state, the proliferation of initiatives does not replace or weaken the UN’s role. At the same time, as academic literature has pointed out, institutions are sticky—it’s easier to modify them than to create new ones. 

Hence, as existing multilateral institutions come under pressure, they will not be displaced, but new arrangements may emerge with respect to aspects of environmental degradation such as industrial pollution and deforestation. Fragmentation can be creative, leading to innovation in problem solving.

Fifth, despite the current pessimism about global governance, the demand for multilateral action is wider than ever before—a key factor supporting the future of the UN. A good deal of recent literature on agency is concerned with the proliferation of actors, especially looking beyond the state-centric focus of the early literature to capture the role of transnational civil society and the private sector, and so forth. 

But the issue of agency goes well beyond bringing the nonstate actors in. Equally important is that the US role in creating and maintaining the global governance architecture has been more limited and less positive while the contribution of others including Europeans and the developing countries (and the weaker actors more generally) is less appreciated but more substantial and extensive than is usually captured in the academic literature and policy debate. 

This is clear in the area of human rights, Responsibility to Protect, climate change, and internet governance, the last being an understudied area where the US role has come under intense criticism after the revelations by intelligence analyst David Snowden in 2013 of massive and systematic US surveillance of the internet.

“However, these factors are not enough to keep the UN going in the long term,” ACHARYA and PLESCH write. “Critically, leaders must pay more attention to selling the benefits of multilateralism and the UN to domestic audiences. To this end, a comprehensive and nonpartisan assessment audit of the benefits of multilateralism for countries is necessary to reduce political partisanship and bias in the debate over the necessity and importance of the UN.”

Acharya, A., & Plesch, D. (2020). The United Nations, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(2), 221-235. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02602001

Genocide Rhetoric in the UN Security Council

The Politicization of the Genocide Label

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide notes a finding of genocide requires member-states and competent organs of the UN to prevent and punish such acts. However, despite this obligation, and the fact that the Convention provides a detailed definition of what acts constitute genocide, the use of euphemisms in referring to situations involving the apparent commission of genocide remains widespread.
“When an atrocity is not recognized as a genocide, a dangerous precedent is set for future acts of semantic avoidance, and the ability of areas affected by genocide to recover is severely hampered, MICHELLE E. RINGROSE writes in the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention.
The UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes asserts that past acts of genocide, serious human rights violations, and crimes against humanity are prominent indicators of a heightened risk of future genocides. This claim is supported by research demonstrating that a history of violence and aggression makes the engagement in future violent acts as a means of responding to conflict and hostility more likely, RINGROSE states in her article titled ‘The Politicization of the Genocide Label: Genocide Rhetoric in the UN Security Council’.
“Given that governments which deny genocide are three times more likely to commit another genocide, international recognition is central to maintaining peace and security.”
The author explores the ways in which language is used by P5 nations in the Security Council to avoid genocide recognition using the Srebrenica genocide as a case study. Srebrenica is an ideal case study to examine such rhetorical positioning for a number of reasons, she notes. First, the atrocities that occurred in Srebrenica constitute the largest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust and symbolize a failure of intelligence collection during peacekeeping operations, thereby undermining the credibility of western governments and the UN.
Second, Srebrenica occurred on the heels of the Rwandan genocide a year earlier, and thus the discussion at the UN, concerning Srebrenica, arose in an environment where the UN P5 and the international community more generally, were all coming to terms with the consequences of their inaction in Rwanda.
Third, in recent years, there has been a turn towards formal recognition of Srebrenica as a genocide by the UN, providing an interesting opportunity to consider the historical context of the use of the term genocide by the P5 over time.
Through an analysis of diplomatic language utilized by UN P5 nations concerning how and whether to label Srebrenica a genocide, RINGROSE explores the intersections of language, power, and politics.
To do so, this article first considers the significance of an attention to language and its use by P5 members in particular, before introducing the specific case of Srebrenica while focusing on the history and context of the use—or avoidance—of the term ‘genocide’. After establishing this context, the article turns to an examination of the language used by P5 members in debates concerning Srebrenica.
This language is analyzed through the lens of framing theory, an approach adopted from its common use in mass-media communications theory to serve as a method of analyzing how particular nations frame and represent narratives around the genocide label.
The analysis proceeds in two parts. The first part involves an exploration of the explicit use of the term ‘genocide’ by P5 nations. The second part then considers situations where P5 nations employ euphemisms to avoid using the term.
“Together, an analysis of these discourses demonstrates how UN Security Council P5 members use language as a mechanism to frame a conflict in a particular way that aligns with their own national political interests,” the author states.
Through this analysis, the article reaffirms the importance of explicit semantic genocide recognition, not only as an important legal determination, but one that also affects acknowledgment of the significance of a given atrocity event, and post-conflict growth and mediation processes.
“The discourse analysis of 32 UN Security Council debates related to the Srebrenica genocide between 1995 and 2015 discussed in the article demonstrates how the P5 nations selectively framed this event according to each nation’s own beliefs and strategic interests,” RINGROSE states.
Moreover, the politicization of the rhetoric used in referring to the Srebrenica genocide appears to also have varied according to domestic policy considerations, Security Council power politics, and the complexities of language use within an international arena, wherein multiple actors are involved over time, she adds.
Future studies of language use within Security Council debates should focus on other acts of genocide in order to ascertain if the trends identified in this article are replicated. An analysis of language used in other documents relevant to the Srebrenica genocide, such as International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or International Court of Justice decisions, would also provide a helpful dataset.
While some may argue the use of language within the UN Security Council is mere incidental semantic variation, the continued avoidance of the genocide label within the Security Council in relation to the Srebrenica genocide supports the thesis that the P5 nations use language as a mechanism to frame a conflict in a particular manner that aligns with their own political interests, the author states.
“As such, this article reaffirms the importance of genocide recognition as more than a legal issue. Rather, such recognition, or lack thereof, in various fora, including the official statements of the P5 Security Council nations, has the ability to increase or decrease communal violence and revenge, and to either help alleviate or perpetuate, transgenerational cultural trauma associated with denial.”

Ringrose, Michelle E. (2020) ‘The Politicization of the Genocide Label: Genocide Rhetoric in the UN Security Council,’ Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 14: Iss. 1: 124-142.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.14.1.1603

Successes and Failures of UN Peace Operations

What does ‘success’ in peace operations mean? Is it purely the absence of hostilities, or should it also be measured in terms of civilian suffering? Did a United Nations peacekeeping mission succeed because it fulfilled its mandate of monitoring elections or did it fail because it was not able to prevent civilian massacres in the areas where peacekeepers were deployed?
Writing in Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, D.B. PUSHKINA examines the existing measures of the UN’s effectiveness, proposes a new scale of measurement of successes and failures of UN peacekeeping operations and examines six cases in Africa (UNTAG in Namibia, ONOMOZ in Mozambique, UNAMIR in Rwanda, UNOSOM in Somalia, MINURCA in the Central African Republic, ONUB in Burundi) across proposed measures.
The definition of success the author offers in the article – ‘Successes and Failures of United Nations Peace Operations’ – comprises limiting violent conflict, reducing human suffering, preventing conflict from spreading, and preventing war from recurring.
That definition, according to the author, does two important things: 1) it acknowledges the different nuances, voices, and forces – international and domestic, societal and institutional – affecting whether a mission may or may not be considered successful; 2) it insists that the human dimension remains the primary criterion for such considerations.
“A more nuanced consideration of ‘success’ and a close look at so many cases is relevant not only to conceptual debates about these issues but also to ‘real’ policy in the past, present, and future.”
The six UN peacekeeping missions in Africa originated after the end of the Cold war and have been completed at the time of writing. She finds that two out of those missions succeeded across most of the criteria, two failed and two fell into the gray area of partial success-partial failure.
“The most important observation that can be made from this classification is that in several cases the overall assessment does not overlap with mandate implementation,” the author states. For example, ONUB in Burundi, despite fulfilling most of the mandate’s objectives and classified by the UN as one of its most successful missions is placed in the partial success/failure group, mostly due to the current instability in Burundi, hence, UN’s weaker contribution in progress towards positive peace.
Concerning various criteria of success, UN peacekeeping has been particularly unsuccessful in preventing genocide and/or civilian massacres. Varying success was demonstrated in limiting violence, preventing violent deaths and refugee and IDP resettlement/preventing outflows. UN missions have been fairly successful in preventing conflicts from spreading and creating regional instability.
Regarding conflict resolution measures, UN missions performed better in preventing reoccurrence of war within two years after departure, but UN peacekeeping has been less successful at contributing to progress towards positive peace.
The difference between evaluation of the missions based solely on mandate implementation versus on their contribution to limiting violence, reducing human suffering, preventing conflict spread, preventing the recurrence of war and contributing to progress toward positive peace leads to a deeper understanding of whether the UN Security Council is making the right decisions for particular situations and whether UN peace operations are indeed utilizing all of their potential for bringing stability to the world.
Successful missions offer support for an optimistic outlook. Partial successes, especially those of missions deployed amid ongoing wars, reinforce this optimism but offer a word of caution to avoid too demanding expectations of UN troops. “Finally, failed missions should never be forgotten or under-analyzed in order not only to avoid mistakes in the future but also not to place all blame on peacekeepers as opposed to the decision-making bodies.”

Pushkina D. B. Successes and Failures of United Nations Peace Operations. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2020, vol. 65, Iss. 1, рр. 261–277.
https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu02.2020.115

Why Do States So Avidly Seek a Nonpermanent Seat On the United Nations Security Council?

Why do states seek a nonpermanent seat in the UN Security Council? The obvious answer is that the UN Charter confers on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Despite their formal power, ANN-MARIE EKENGREN, FREDRIK D. HJORTHEN and ULRIKA MÖLLER remind us, there are important limitations to the influence Council members are able to wield. For one, the capacity of the Council to exercise its authority is highly contingent on the voluntary cooperation of states, which in turn depends on the perceived legitimacy of the Council.
Moreover, a number of circumstances contribute to monopolizing effective decision-making power with the Permanent Five (P5), reducing the role of the Elected Ten (E10) to considering “previously cooked decisions.” In addition to the veto, the P5 has access to the institutional memory of the Council, has more experienced diplomatic staff, and has competence in practices such as ‘penholding’.
Yet this does not appear to have curbed the enthusiasm of other UN members for seeking an elected seat. Instead, there has been an increase in competition, leading to more intensive and elaborate election campaigns. The competitive challenge facing aspiring members is compounded by the increase in UN membership, from 104 in 1963 to 193 in 2018.
Member States seeking an elected seat are now up against more competitors and need to win the support of more countries to secure the required number of votes. Accordingly, securing a nonpermanent seat has been described as “more of a prize than ever”. It might seem, therefore, that the gains of an elected seat outweigh the costs of competing for it. But what exactly do aspiring members hope to achieve?
Departing from the overarching assumption that power and influence is at stake, EKENGREN, HJORTHEN and MÖLLER investigate what states think they will achieve by serving on the Council. Their article, ‘A Nonpermanent Seat in the United Nations Security Council: Why Bother?’, published in the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, contributes with a novel systematic theoretical and empirical exploration of why states find a nonpermanent seat in the UN Security Council attractive.
Three conceptualizations of power—to influence, to network, and to gain status—guide the empirical analysis. A telephone interview survey with diplomatic staff at Member States’ permanent missions to the United Nations in New York provides readers with original and unique empirical knowledge of state perceptions of power.
The candidature for a seat comes with expectations of influencing decision-making, despite modest estimations of the opportunity to have impact, the authors state. Opportunities to network and to gain status are not frequent reasons for a candidature. Diplomats’ estimations are nevertheless higher on the opportunity to actually establish relevant relationships and to gain status brought by a seat.
The most interesting findings of the study are reached by comparing: (1) stated reasons for wanting a seat with estimations of the power-enhancing benefits brought by a seat; and (2) reasons ascribed to other states for wanting a seat with the stated reasons for one’s own state. When diplomats were asked why a seat was of interest, they rated the opportunity to influence the agenda as the main reason. When asked about the benefits of holding an elected seat, they were modest in their ratings of this type of influence. Conversely, they were optimistic in their assessment on the opportunity to establish networks, but this was not among the most important stated reasons for wanting a seat.
The pattern for status was similar, although the difference was not as accentuated; status was not a main reason for wanting a seat, but expectations that an elected seat brings status were rather high.
It might seem puzzling that a main reason for wanting a seat was to influence the agenda when assessments of the opportunity to do so were so modest, EKENGREN, HJORTHEN and MÖLLER state. However, this indicates awareness of the actual obstacles facing the elected members and that influence is still greater with than without a seat. Moreover, it may be that improved relations and status are seen by states as (direct or indirect) forms of influence too, making the discrepancy between influence as a reason for seeking a seat and the reported lack of influence on Security Council decision-making less of a puzzle.
Regarding the expectation of stronger relationships with other actors, the results indicate that this was a by-product of the seat and not the main reason for seeking a seat in the first place. The expectation of improved status should be considered in light of the view expressed by many states that any increase in status is temporary and perhaps also limited to UN circles in New York. Hence, the conceptualization of power-enhancing benefits through networking and social interaction helps us understand states’ expectations once the seat is won.
The sense of obligation and ambition to take responsibility for the multilateral order expressed by many diplomats can be interpreted as a will to pursue and promote specific values and norms through the seat, the authors state. By contrast, when diplomats were asked about other states’ reasons for wanting a seat, their will to influence was to a much lesser degree paired with the wish to contribute to the multilateral order, and the aspirations for status were stated as much more important.
The difference in responses regarding their own and other states can mean several things. For one, it could be that, when asked about other states, respondents were more honest and that the interest in status in fact applied to their own state as well. On the other hand, it could be that states generalize based on the existence of a few well-known examples of status seekers. Moreover, the tendency to attach less weight to the wish to influence for promoting values and norms and more weight on status seeking of other states might be interpreted as if states perceive a competition over status in these international settings that they do not want to admit.
Some states might also connect status seeking with small-state behavior and this might be easier to admit for other states than for their own. In addition, some states might want a seat to preserve a certain status and to remain relevant in global politics, while others seek a seat to improve their status and become more relevant.
Seeing status as a power-enhancing benefit paved the way for an intriguing finding in terms of the discrepancy between stated reasons for one’s own state and other states, according to the authors. It points to the relevance of the ongoing move within the literature toward incorporating a social dimension to the understanding of power and influence. The tendency to ascribe collective goals for seeking influence to one’s own state, but not to other states, is another finding that points to the remaining relevance on the debate between international relations theories on self-interested and collective purposes for action as well as with regard to the importance of values and norms in world politics.
“All three conceptualizations of power-enhancing benefits have proved useful in our analysis, albeit to a varying extent and in different ways,” the authors contend. For example, the prevalence on influence as a reason for seeking a seat in the Security Council may be seen to reflect the conceptualization of power that leans toward a material understanding of power consistent with neorealism. On the other hand, the reported emphasis on values and reform seems more in line with the neoliberal view. Finally, the reported presence and relevance of status considerations might be said to reflect more of a social understanding of power in line with the constructivist view.
Although previous studies on the candidatures and election of members to the Security Council have only briefly addressed the question of why states seek an elected seat, the authors state, there are no empirical studies focusing specifically on this topic. “Our article addresses this gap by focusing on the expectations that states have on an elected seat in the Council.”
Even with the modest response rate taken into account, it gives a substantial contribution to our understanding of why states run for a seat. “We believe this article opens the way for important future research on states’ reasons for international cooperation and interaction, in relation to a seat in the Council as well as in relation to other forms of international representation.”
Looking ahead, EKENGREN, HJORTHEN and MÖLLER state, it would be relevant to investigate how states with different characteristics relate to the three different power-enhancing benefits and by doing so control for some possibly important background variables: Do middle-range powers have greater expectations (than smaller states) on the opportunity to influence the agenda in different institutional settings? Do states with a lower level of international integration have greater expectations regarding the opportunity for social interactions? Do smaller states have greater expectations of status through an elected seat in the Council, or in other international organizations?
In addition, structured case comparisons would be beneficial for the purpose of analyzing whether and how the campaigns for international representation reflect the described expectations. Do states with high expectations on influence, networking, or status invest more time and money in the campaigns? And are the campaigns designed differently depending on what states hope to achieve through a seat?

Ekengren, A., Hjorthen, F. D., & Möller, U. (2020). A Nonpermanent Seat in the United Nations Security Council, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(1), 21-45. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02601007

A Review of the Academic Debate on Reforming the United Nations Security Council

Although member states have debated reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) since the organization’s inception, little attention has been paid to a full review outlining the academic debate, while exploring its underlying modes of thinking.
Writing in the Chinese Journal of Global Governance, BJARKE ZINCK WINTHER describes the academic debate’s historical backdrop and examines more recent contributions to the topic, thereby illustrating that research in support of structural reform of the UNSC has gradually moved from being the prevailing emphasis toward taking up a smaller share of the dialogue.
“Consequently, a discrepancy exists between the debates among UN member states, where calls for structural reform make up the majority, and the academic literature covering the topic,’ he writes in the research article ‘A Review of the Academic Debate about United Nations Security Council Reform’. “Subsequently, more research is needed to help explain this inclination.”
WINTHER maintains that his article does not propose that scholars are obliged to direct their research to fit with the interests of nation states. “However, research that covers an issue which significantly impacts global security must be attentive to the preferences of nation states.”
The arena of UN studies, expanding many fields, is closely tied to the diplomatic arena within the UN. “For this reason, scholars should be careful not to drive a wedge between the production of knowledge in academia and the application of knowledge in diplomatic circles.” This is particularly important if academics want to maintain the possibility of influencing global governance and policy creation, he adds.
“I propose that the task for UNSC reform research going forward is to explore new approaches so that the academic debate avoids becoming as gridlocked as the one among UN member states.”
WINTHER examines four types of UNSC-reform advocacy: ‘tenacious’ and ‘moderate’ advocacy each of structural reforms and working methods reforms. The answers found in both types of arguments for structural reform are constructed as normative propositions, arguing first and foremost, that principles of democracy and equality should be the central guides for how the international community approaches UNSC reform.
On the other side of the main dividing line, arguments in favor of working methods are based more on pragmatic considerations. Working methods proponents argue that the council was created to serve a function, and how that task is best fulfilled ought to be the primary guide for those discussing UNSC reform. “In short, structural reform arguments are based on calls for the council’s alignment with contemporary geopolitical realities, whereas working methods reform arguments are based on precautions against this.”
The central points from the four types of advocacy, however, are present in most if not all literature concerned with UNSC reform, the author states. That is, whether or not the structure of the UNSC aligns, or should align, with principals of equity and with the geopolitical realities of today.
Despite all the debates and rounds of negotiations in the UN, all the research, and suggestions on reform from academia, the issue remains unresolved. The proposed notion of convergence between the two lines of thinking found in academia is meant as an inspiration for the investigation of new approaches.
“Edward C. Luck was surely right,” WINTHER contends, “when he wrote that the proponents of structural reform need to do better in explaining how an expanded council would perform better, and those opposing structural reform in answering if no structural reform now, then when would the time be ripe?”
Therefore, research is needed that aligns the widespread quest for structural reform among member states with the critical observations from academia about the need to pay attention to how reform will impact the efficiency of the council, he states.

Winther, B. (2020). A Review of the Academic Debate about United Nations Security Council Reform, The Chinese Journal of Global Governance, 6(1), 71-101. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/23525207-12340047

Just Different Hats? Comparing UN and Non-UN Peacekeeping

In the past two decades, regional organizations and coalitions of states have deployed more peace operations than the United Nations. Yet most quantitative studies of peacekeeping effectiveness focus on UN peacekeeping exclusively, a decision owed to data availability more than to theories about the differential impact of UN and non-UN missions. As a result, we know little about the effectiveness of non-UN peacekeeping in mitigating violence.
CORINNE BARA and LISA HULTMAN introduce and analyze monthly data on the approximate number of troops, police, and observers in both UN and non-UN peacekeeping operations between 1993 and 2016.
“Using these data, we show that when accounting for mission size and composition, UN and regional peacekeeping operations are equally effective in mitigating violence against civilians by governments, but only UN troops and police curb civilian targeting by non-state actors,” the authors state in ‘Just Different Hats? Comparing UN and Non-UN Peacekeeping’, published in the journal International Peacekeeping.
“We offer some theoretical reflections on these findings, but the main contribution of the article is the novel dataset on non-UN peacekeeping strength and personnel composition to overcome the near-exclusive focus on UN missions in the scholarship on peacekeeping effectiveness.”
The authors have explored the similarities and differences between UN and non-UN peacekeeping. By providing comparable data on the approximate monthly number of peacekeepers for both UN and non-UN missions, they are able to examine issues relating to their different strengths, compositions, and effects. “One question we ask is whether UN and non-UN missions deploy to different contexts. Our descriptive statistics shows some evidence for this.”
On average, the UN deploys to more violent conflicts than non-UN actors, BARA and HULTMAN state. However, in situations in which the UN and non-UN actors intervene into the same conflict, the non-UN actor is most often the first responder. “This article could not explore these differences and temporal dynamics in more detail, but the question of how the effectiveness of earlier missions influences the effectiveness of missions that take over later deserves more research.”
The effects of these missions also vary. “If we take the size of missions into consideration, is there a difference in the effect between UN and non-UN missions? Our findings suggest that there is, at least when it comes to reducing one-sided violence by rebel groups,” the authors state.
This example is a reminder that the category of non-UN peacekeeping is admittedly a rough mix of different types of missions and that the heterogeneity of non-UN missions ought to be further explored. Moreover, whether missions are deployed by the UN or another organization is perhaps not their most distinguishing feature. Certain UN and non-UN missions may be more comparable to each other than missions within these two organizational categories.
“The data we present here offers the possibility to explore differences between and among UN and non-UN missions further, and hopefully an impetus to overcome the step-motherly treatment of non-UN peacekeeping at least in the quantitative study of peacekeeping effectiveness.”

Civil Conflict and Agenda-Setting Speed in the UNSC

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can respond to a civil conflict only if that conflict first enters the Council’s agenda. Some conflicts reach the Council’s agenda within days after they start, others after years (or even decades), and some never make it. So far, only a few studies have looked at the crucial UNSC agenda-setting stage, and none have examined agenda-setting speed, MARTIN BINDER and JONATHAN GOLUB state.
“To fill this important gap, we develop and test a novel theoretical framework that combines insights from realist and constructivist theory with lessons from institutionalist theory and bargaining theory,” the authors state in a research article titled ‘Civil Conflict and Agenda-Setting Speed in the United Nations Security Council’ published in International Studies Quarterly.
Applying survival analysis to an original dataset, the authors show that the parochial interests of the permanent members (P-5) matter, but they do not determine the Council’s agenda-setting speed. Rather, P-5 interests are constrained by normative considerations and concerns for the Council’s organizational mission arising from the severity of a conflict (in terms of spillover effects and civilian casualties); by the interests of the widely ignored elected members (E-10); and by the degree of preference heterogeneity among both the P-5 and the E-10.
“Our findings also have important implications for the Council’s legitimacy, in terms of both performance legitimacy and procedural legitimacy,” BINDER and GOLUB state. “[I]n our conceptualization the UN is more legitimate if devastating conflicts reach the agenda faster.”
For the UNSC’s performance legitimacy, it makes a big difference whether a crisis reaches the Council’s agenda rapidly and is discussed in public, or whether a crisis goes on for a long time without any exposure at a UNSC meeting and no chance of further action. “Our findings are consistent with a legitimate Council that takes its mandate seriously, addressing more promptly conflicts that produce substantial human suffering and massive negative externalities for neighboring countries.”
But the findings also help to assess an important element of the Council’s procedural legitimacy by demonstrating how issues reach the agenda, the authors contend. Do parochial interests of the powerful permanent members skew agenda-setting speed? “We show that narrow P-5 interests definitely affect the speed of agenda setting in important ways, but also that the Council does not appear to be an entirely illegitimate P-5 dominated elite club in which the elected members trade away their influence in exchange for bribes. Instead, the P-5 need to reach out to the E-10, rendering the agenda-setting process more inclusive of a larger set of interests.”
Future research should investigate whether there is a systematic link between the speed with which conflicts reach the UNSC’s agenda and the effect this has on the UN’s success in terms of conflict resolution, peacekeeping, or sanctions, BINDER and GOLUB state. “Pursuing these avenues would contribute to better understanding of how international organizations work, their effectiveness, and their legitimacy.”

Small States Can Take Small But Important Steps to Improve UN Peacekeeping

With its peacekeeping missions struggling to fulfil ambitious mandates in hostile environments, the United Nations urgently requires sustained action toward boosting performance and regaining global trust.
For this, the organization needs tangible support and engagement from its member states, including smaller states with specialized military capabilities, write LOUISE RIIS ANDERSEN and RICHARD GOWAN in a policy brief published by the Danish Institute for International Studies.
“Recent studies show that United Nations peace operations save lives and often offer better value for money than other multinational stabilization missions,” the authors state in the brief titled ‘Small States Can Take Small But Important Steps to Improve UN Peacekeeping’.
“At the same time, it is widely understood both inside and outside the UN that peacekeeping needs fundamental reform.”
The UN’s four main missions in Africa – in Mali, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – often lack the political capital and military heft to contain major violence and advance faltering peace processes.
Against this backdrop, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched his initiative ‘Action for Peacekeeping’ (A4P) in March 2018 as a plea for Member States to recommit to UN peacekeeping and help:
- refocus peacekeeping with realistic expectations
- make peace operations stronger and safer
- mobilize greater support for political solutions and for well-structured, well-equipped, well-trained forces.
While A4P presented no radical proposals about the future of UN peace operations, ANDERSEN and GOWAN state, it has turned out to be a useful framework for the UN secretariat in pursuing a range of reforms on issues such as assessing the performance of peacekeeping units and improving the safety of peacekeepers.
“Moreover, at a time when great-power rivalry and rifts in the Security Council are standing in the way of larger questions being addressed, A4P offers a useful set of openings for medium- and small-sized member states that are aiming to strengthen existing UN operations.”
Apart from providing troops and equipment, small states can assist the UN in 1) improving the conduct and discipline of peacekeepers; and 2) linking blue helmet operations to long-term efforts to ‘sustain peace’ in the countries where they serve. The UN has highlighted a need for more community liaison teams to address discipline problems, such as sexual abuse by peacekeepers, and member states could work with the secretariat to develop these.
A4P also highlights the need for member states to help ensure that ‘transitions from peacekeeping operations’ are successful. This entails working to ensure that peace is sustained after the peacekeeping operation has been withdrawn and the UN has reconfigured its engagements in the country. This is especially important in cases such as Sudan and the DRC, where such transitions are on the short- or medium-term horizon and where the UN military missions may be replaced by some form of special political mission or peacebuilding mission, the authors state.
Member states can assist the UN by increasing bilateral security assistance to the affected countries (by, for example, tailoring security-sector reform efforts to enhance the legitimacy of local authorities) and putting pressure on multilateral actors such as the World Bank to invest additional resources in peacebuilding.
“By bringing resources to bear in this way, even countries that do not deploy many peacekeepers can boost peacekeeping,” ANDERSEN and GOWAN state.

Reaching Climate Security: How Climate Change Moved Up the UN Security Council Agenda

The energetic evolution of climate change as a United Nations Security Council issue has caught the interest of scholars and students alike. From an initial tentative debate to resolution paragraphs, the topic of has raced up the agenda of the organ, albeit not without its share of controversy.
“There is still no consensus on whether the Security Council is the right arena for climate discussions,” writes SOFIE BERGLUND in the research paper ‘Reaching Climate Security: How Climate Change Moved up the Security Council Agenda’, published by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
“While some states argue that action on climate change is central to international security and conflict prevention, others fear it could legitimize interference in states’ sovereign decision making on development choices.”
As global emission curves continue stubbornly to point upwards despite multilateral agreements to limit temperature rise, a Security Council directive on immediate, holistic action is viewed by some as crucial to preventing the worst global climate change forecasts from coming true, the author states. Sweden (in 2017-2018) and Germany (in 2019-2020) are two of the most recent examples of non-permanent members urging the Security Council to adopt a more ambitious agenda on climate security matters.
Indeed, it seems that Sweden’s approach to incorporating climate change awareness into the Security Council mandate was particularly fruitful. Despite the reluctance of some permanent members, climate change made it into several resolutions, and a climate security mechanism and an expert network group were formed during its two-year membership of the Council.
What led the Security Council to agree to make climate change part of its resolution vocabulary? As Germany picks up from where Sweden left off, backed by several risk assessments that highlight climate change as one of the biggest threats to global security, will concerns and objections soon just be muffled things of the past?
BERGLUND offers an overview of the progress of the climate security debate in the Security Council and examines the defining moments leading up to where we are today. It then looks at the future of climate change as a Security Council issue, focused on the ambitious commitments of Germany, a current non-permanent member, and the positions of the permanent members. The paper concludes with remarks on the opportunities and pitfalls ahead.
“While states that favor climate security being discussed in the Security Council have faced significant obstacles, their work has been persistent and has accelerated in recent years,” the author states. The variety of hosts of open debates and Arria-formula meetings on the matter is worthy of note, highlighting broad support for increased action by the Council. The positions of the veto powers are, as in most Council matters, the biggest impediment to getting agreement on a resolution focused solely on climate change-related security risks.
The first resolution to include the phrase ‘climate change’ was adopted after the Council was brought face to face with the security impacts of climate change. It therefore seems to have been key to Sweden’s work to approach the matter geographically, locating first one location particularly at risk of further destabilization from climate change, and then another, instead of forcing a new topic area onto the Council agenda.
Security Council Resolution 1373, which required all states to take action to criminalize terrorism, followed in the emotional aftermath of 9/11. This suggests that a resolution on limiting climate change might follow an extreme weather event or humanitarian disaster. What such an event might be to trigger Council action is unclear, as immense disasters have already taken place without generating such a response. However, given that climate change now appears in resolutions and is being debated by more actors, a greater Security Council response to environmental disasters appears more likely in the future. The current state of global climate politics, however, most notably the failure to reach a satisfying agreement at COP25 makes a resolution on climate security within the near less probable. More likely is a Council statement arising from the joint initiatives of states, urging national governments to treat climate change as a security risk.
In sum, this has two primary implications. First, although the position of some of the veto powers says otherwise, there is momentum for climate action at this level. The growth in membership of the Group of Friends on Climate Security is one expression of this, as well as the continuing work to establish mechanisms to facilitate communication between science and policymaking. This encourages continuing work to keep the topic on the agenda.
This progress does, however, risk obscuring concerns about giving the Security Council a mandate to act on climate change and although the issue is pressing, states need to be mindful of these concerns when moving forward. Action on climate security could, as shown in this text, add legitimacy to a contested Security Council, but if not handled mindfully, it risks giving rise to even more criticism of the undemocratic processes of the Council.
Second, in connection with the urgent nature of climate change, the obstacles are still significant and states cannot rely solely on the Security Council to provide an immediate response at this time. Instead, the alliances of like-minded states built within and outside the Council should take the lead on climate action in other forums, without necessarily losing momentum in the Council.
Despite the severe obstacles, the author states, there are good reasons for policymakers and academics not to neglect the Security Council as a forum for raising climate-related security matters. The debates and opinions signal an international desire for a more holistic approach to climate change that includes areas not traditionally considered appropriate for discussion in that body. Advances have already been made and, as Germany and other states have signaled, climate security will be raised again in the Security Council in the near future, making it an important area for future research and analysis.

Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure

Military interveners often seek endorsements from regional international organizations (IOs), in addition to approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), to reassure international and domestic audiences. Toward that end, interveners should seek the endorsement of continent-wide regional IOs with the broadest and most diverse membership, which are most likely to be independent.
In practice, however, interveners often seek endorsements from subregional IOs with narrow membership and aggregate preferences similar to their own, writes STEFANO RECCHIA in the Journal of Global Security Studies. This should weaken the reassurance/legitimation effect significantly.
In his research article titled ‘Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure’, RECCHIA argues that such narrower regional endorsements are sought not so much to reassure skeptical audiences, as to pressure reluctant UNSC members to approve the intervention by putting those members’ relations with regional partners at stake.
To illustrate this argument and probe its plausibility, the author reconstructs France’s successful efforts to obtain UNSC approval for its interventions in Côte d’Ivoire (2002-2003) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003) at a time when the United States was hesitant to support France because of the two countries’ falling-out over the Iraq War.
“Both cases provide strong evidence that France used regional endorsements to overcome opposition at the UNSC,”  RECCHIA states. In the Côte d’Ivoire case, it is possible that Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional support pressed a hesitant US administration to come on board, not only by putting Washington’s relations with regional partners at stake, but also by depriving the administration of the argument that this was an illegitimate intervention.
By contrast, in the DRC case, the European Union (EU)’s endorsement can less plausibly be seen as having legitimized the intervention internationally, as the EU could in no way signal regional consent from within Africa. Hence, in the DRC case, it is very likely that if the United States ultimately voted in favor of the French-led intervention at the UNSC, in spite of clear misgivings, it did so to avoid harming US political and economic relations with other EU members.
The motivation for seeking regional endorsements theorized in the article – pressuring hesitant UNSC members –was especially visible in the Côte d’Ivoire and DRC cases. Yet since the mid-1990s, France has systematically sought endorsements from regional IOs for its interventions in Africa before requesting UNSC approval, for the most part working through ECOWAS and/or the EU.
“It is likely that in many of these cases, French leaders viewed regional multilateral endorsements as a way of smoothing the path toward UNSC approval by stepping up pressure on hesitant UNSC members,”  RECCHIA states.
In the run-up to the 2011 Libya intervention, for example, the main advocates of military action, France and the United Kingdom, secured endorsements from two regional multilateral bodies – the Gulf Cooperation Council and the League of Arab States. These regional bodies were in a position to put pressure on China and Russia, the principal UNSC holdouts in this case.
“This raises the question whether military interveners are free to ‘forum shop’ and seek the endorsement of regional IOs whose opinion on how to respond to a particular crisis ‘happens to coincide with their own’”.
The goals that military interveners pursue through regional multilateral endorsements should influence which particular organizations they approach. If the goal is reassuring skeptical audiences internationally and domestically, then interveners should seek the endorsement of regional IOs that appear especially legitimate in terms of the breadth and diversity of their membership and/or that can plausibly claim to represent the ‘collective will’ of the region targeted by the military action.
If, instead, the goal is to exert political pressure on hesitant UNSC members, then interveners should seek the endorsement of regional IOs whose members are enmeshed in close political, military, and economic relations with the principal holdouts on the UNSC; the diversity and ‘representativeness’ of the regional IO’s membership should be secondary. The ability of a military intervener to ‘forum shop’ is thus likely to be constrained by the types of benefits it hopes to achieve through regional backing.

Recchia, Stefano (2020) Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure. Journal of Global Security Studies, ogaa013, https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaa013

China’s Evolving Approach to UN Peacekeeping in Africa

Beijing’s peace and security discourse, including its emphasis on non-interference and sovereignty, has remained relatively constant over the last decades.
However, China’s practice in Mali and South Sudan, as well as in Africa more generally, has evolved significantly, CEDRIC DE CONING and KARI M. OSLAND in a new report published by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
China is supporting international efforts to improve the peace and security landscape in these countries. China is also bilaterally influencing developments through significant investments in infrastructure, agriculture, health and education, the authors state in the report titled ‘China’s Evolving Approach to UN Peacekeeping in Africa’.
“However, it is its active engagement in supporting international and regional mediation and the assertive way that Beijing has chosen to use peacekeeping that are the most telling indicators of how much its actual practice on the ground has evolved beyond its official rhetoric,” DE CONING and OSLAND write.
“At the same time China has been developing its own unique approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, based on a theory of change that sees peace as emerging from development. Taken together, these developments reflect turning points in how China chooses to contribute to international peace and security, and are indicative of how China is adapting to its new global power status.”

China’s Growing Engagement with the UN Development System as an Emerging Nation

While augmenting its volume of foreign aid by double digits since the beginning of the 21st century, China has also expanded from bilateral to South-South and triangular cooperation through various multilateral institutions to help bridge growing funding gaps for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda).
China is now the 11th largest funder of the World Bank’s International Development Association and second-largest contributor to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. “With its power and authority steadily increasing, China attaches great importance to the UN’s role in promoting global development and is working with the organization to align its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the 2030 Agenda,” writes MAO RUIPENG in a new discussion paper.
China is providing more and more funds to the UN development system (UNDS), and in 2017, was its 13th largest funder. The past years have also witnessed China’s increasing voluntary contributions to UNDS agencies, particularly for humanitarian projects like those of the World Food Programme (WFP).
In May 2016, the Chinese government and the UN agreed that China would contribute US$200 million over ten years to set up the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund (UNPDF), one of the most significant recent contributions to the United Nations from any country.
As China deepens its engagement in global governance and development, its strategic motivation and rising influence within the United Nations and on international rules and norms are attracting the world’s attention.
China’s shares of core funding and assessed contribution in its total UNDS funding are much higher than traditional donor countries, MAO writes in ‘China’s Growing Engagement with the UNDS as an Emerging Nation: Changing Rationales, Funding Preferences and Future Trends’, published by the German Development Institute.
However, the share of non-core funding has also jumped. While China tends to mostly provide funds for UNDS development projects, in recent years, it has even been hiking funding for humanitarian assistance.
The discussion paper also examines three cases of China’s earmarked funding – to the United Nations Development Program and the WFP, which receive the largest share of its UNDS funds, as well as for UNPDF operations.
There are several reasons for China’s growing engagement with the UNDS, from evolving perception of foreign aid and appreciating the UN’s multilateral assets to fostering the reputation of ‘responsible great nation’ and pushing forward the BRI through cooperation with the UNDS, the author states.
“Today, multilateralism is on the wane, and many countries are looking inward. China, however, continues to advocate multilateralism, fully acknowledging the UN’s authority in global governance and endorsing the UN Charter as the basis for the international order,” MAO writes.
China views its advocacy for the principles of broad consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits in global governance as consistent with the basic principles of multilateralism, according to the author. China also believes that most countries support multilateralism and resent unilateralism and protectionism.
“By supporting multilateralism China is able to promote relationships with other developing countries – as well as most Western ones,” MAO writes.
In general, China continues to integrate into the global development system and can be expected to maintain its support for the UN and continue to contribute to the UNDS.

Towards an Emotional Geography of Diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations Security Council

The rapid growth in the study of emotions in geography in recent years has fueled new conceptual and methodological insights into understandings of power, its expression, and socio‐spatial underpinnings. ALUN JONES progresses an emotional geography of diplomacy by considering emotions as part of calculative action on the part of diplomats.
In ‘Towards an emotional geography of diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations Security Council’, published in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, JONES seeks to move the spotlight away from what emotion is to what emotion, as an embodied sociality, seeks to do to the alteration or reproduction of geopolitical relations.
“This unique focus on the calculative dimensions of emotional usage in diplomacy is a central though unexplored dimension of emotional geopolitics and one that I consider supports a perspective in which emotions are not depoliticized or trivialized, but situated, historicized, and relational, and which may be mobilized for political purposes,” he states.
Focusing on the socio‐spatiality of calculative emotions, and building on recent scholarly interest in the mobilization and manipulation of emotions, JONES explores their use in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a poignant and powerful context for the study of emotional diplomacies.
Using empirically rich materials derived from interviews with Security Council delegations, the paper’s aims are threefold. First, JONES explore the different ways in which emotions are perceived, performed, interpreted, and acted on by diplomats in this international, inter‐cultural geopolitical body. Second, from a geographical perspective he investigates the ways in which embodied emotions are distinctively connected to specific sites and spaces, and demonstrate the complexities of their usage in the UNSC.
Finally, using a case study of Russian–UK emotional exchanges in the UNSC over the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Syria, JONES show that research on emotional diplomacies must be sensitive to the specific social and cultural assumptions over what particular emotions mean and do in altering and reproducing geopolitical relations.

Jones A. Towards an emotional geography of diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations
Security Council. Trans Inst Br Geogr. 2020;00:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12371

The Effect of Peacekeeping on Postwar Violence

Existing research shows that peace after civil wars is more stable with peacekeepers present. Yet, violence persists in many postwar contexts, and although postwar violence is often strategic and closely linked to the faultlines of the preceding war, we know little about the impact of peacekeepers on such violence, writes CORINNE BARA.
“What we know, moreover, focuses on the former combatants, while this study shows that the majority of deaths in postwar violence are inflicted by other armed actors,” she writes in ‘Shifting targets: the effect of peacekeeping on postwar violence’, a research article published in the European Journal of International Relations. “This is a challenge for peacekeepers who – for mandate or capacity reasons – usually focus on the warring parties.”
BARA argues that the impact of peacekeepers on postwar violence hinges on the extent to which they fill a public security gap after war, since responsibility for violence not covered by a mission’s mandate lies with the often dysfunctional security agencies of the state. To test this, she uses a novel spatial approach to generate data that captures the manifold manifestations of violence across different postwar contexts. The author finds that only UN police – with their broader effect on public security – mitigate postwar violence generally. UN troops have some impact on civilian targeting by former combatants but no such effect could be identified for violence by other armed actors. The findings highlight the importance of peacekeeping police at a time when the modus operandi and capacity of UN police have been questioned, but also the importance of accounting for a multitude of violent actors when analysing the impact of international interventions more generally.

Bara, C. (2020). Shifting targets: the effect of peacekeeping on postwar violence. European Journal of International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120902503

China and Russia in UN Security Council R2P Debates

Beijing and Moscow both have exerted significant influence on the evolution of the concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), which has come to the forefront of the global human rights agenda in recent years. What are the similarities and differences between the two states in those debates, and what are the reasons behind them?
ZHENG CHEN and HANG YIN compare the rhetoric of the two countries in debates relevant to R2P at the UN Security Council (UNSC). The primary subjects are thematic debates on protection of civilians in armed conflicts, in which R2P is a key topic, and debates on the Syrian crisis, the most controversial recent issue involving the application of R2P.
“As discourses reflect and construct social reality, probing these questions will help us to a better understanding of the two states’ R2P policies within a broader strategic context,” the authors write in ‘China and Russia in R2P debates at the UN Security Council’, published in International Affairs.
The positions of China and Russia towards R2P are similar, expressing support for the first two pillars of R2P while resisting coercive intervention under the third pillar. For both Beijing and Moscow, safeguarding domestic political security is a predominant concern. They strongly opposed external interventions that could lead to regime change and state fragmentation, especially in those regions close to their borders or in their partner states.
In other cases, both states were ready to adopt a conditionally cooperative approach. They are very keen to preserve their role as ‘permission givers’ for international actions and to participate actively in relevant discussions to shape the further development of R2P.
The two states have found each other useful to lean on during some difficult situations, CHEN and YIN write. In the case of Syria, for example, they used each other as diplomatic cover. That is, however, a far cry from a looming ‘partnership of spoilers’.
“The notion of a Sino-Russia bloc obscures the subtle differences between the two. While Beijing appears to prefer a more cautious approach, Moscow is inclined to adopt increasingly aggressive stances on issues such as the Syrian conflict.”
CHEN and YIN argue that many of these differences between the two arise from China’s and Russia’s divergent status prospects, and their correspondingly different ways of signaling their Great Power status. While the power gap between China and the United States is still large, Beijing is confident of its rising status prospect.
“For Beijing, the future seems bright and so it can afford to wait, a cautious and patient approach promising better long-term pay-offs. It thus focuses on ensuring favorable external conditions for its internal development and preventing any external efforts to contain or disrupt its continued rise.”
Beijing has adopted an assertive posture from time to time in the past few years and its potential as a challenger is real; but we should also note the limitations of Chinese assertiveness as well as the continuity of its foreign strategy, the authors state. As long as the Chinese core interests of political security and territorial sovereignty are not adversely affected, Beijing is inclined to follow a course of cooperation and conflict avoidance in its diplomacy. In this process, China has developed a moderate discourse on R2P.
Meanwhile, Russia is in a much more precarious position and perceives its status more from a frame of loss. “It is the successor to a failed superpower and is encountering great difficulties in overcoming a systemic decline. Moscow’s recent assertiveness stems from its frustration at not being treated as an equal, and its consequent intention to signal its resolve to recover at least some of its former prestige,” the authors state.
Russia is very sensitive to events that challenge its status and is risk-prone in countering perceived threats. Amid its continuing concern about ‘losing ground’ to the West in its traditional sphere of influence, Moscow’s attitude to risk prompts it to play the role of a loud and visible dissenter on the international stage, and R2P became a victim to this approach. The R2P debates thus provide a revealing prism through which to analyze the two countries’ foreign strategies. In sum, although the two regimes do instinctively look to each other for mutual support so as to avoid isolation at the UNSC, Beijing and Moscow do not have an identical outlook on issues such as the application of R2P.
The current partnership between China and Russia is not without its difficulties. Washington’s dual containment strategy against both has contributed greatly to their current rapprochement. For the foreseeable future, Moscow and Beijing will regard Washington as their shared principal adversary, and each will treat the other as a main partner. However, both also know well the limitations of what the other can offer, since they have different objectives and agendas. While Russia is anxious about becoming overly dependent on China, Beijing is worried about being dragged into unnecessary conflicts which would jeopardize China’s peaceful rise.
The continued success of this partnership depends on both sides’ ability to manage their underlying differences. As they have divergent perceptions of their own status prospects, the temporary synergy between the two states on R2P debates does not necessarily set a norm for the future.