A Perturbed Peace: Applying Complexity Theory to UN Peacekeeping

To date, peacekeeping has been dominated by linear models of change, assuming that conflict settings can be addressed by elite-driven peace processes, gradual improvements to state institutional capacity, and development programming. 
However, ADAM DAY and CHARLES T. HUNT argue that complexity theory offers a far more accurate and useful lens through which to view the work of peacekeeping: conflict settings represent complex, interdependent socio-political systems with emergent qualities giving them the capacity to self-organize via feedback loops and other adaptive activity. 
Self-organization means such systems are highly resistant to attempts to change behavior via top-down or input-output approaches. In fact, peacekeeping itself is endogenous to the systems it is trying to change, often displaying the same kinds of self-organization typical of complex systems elsewhere, the authors write in the article ‘A Perturbed Peace: Applying Complexity Theory to UN Peacekeeping’, published in the journal International Peacekeeping. 
Drawing on experience working and conducting fieldwork in the UN peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo, the article argues that UN peacekeeping operations should view themselves as actors within the complex conflict ecosystem, looking to enable transformational change from within, rather than impose liberal Western models from without.

Adam Day & Charles T. Hunt (2022) A Perturbed Peace: Applying Complexity Theory to UN Peacekeeping, International Peacekeeping, DOI: 10.1080/13533312.2022.2158457