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The “uploading” of stabilization to UN peacekeeping presents conceptual, political, and practical challenges to the UN’s role in global governance and international conflict management. While scholarly research on stabilization has generally focused on militarization, its relationship to peacebuilding in the context of UN peacekeeping is underexplored. This article examines that relationship. A survey of UN policy frameworks highlights the simultaneous emergence of stabilization and clear expressions of peacebuilding. The article then draws on fieldwork in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo to illustrate how stabilization is displacing peacebuilding in the practices of UN peacekeeping. The article argues that the politics of stabilization impede local forms of peacebuilding, at odds with the “Sustaining Peace” agenda, and risks jeopardizing the lauded conflict resolution potential of UN peacekeeping.

peacekeeping operations, the use of diplomatic 'good offices' and the challenges of peacebuilding, managerial and administrative reforms, planning, partnerships, human rights and the protection of civilians. Not for the first time, the report detected 'a clear sense of a widening gap between what is being asked of UN peace operations today and what they are able to deliver'. 3 In particular, the growth of expectations about the capacity of UN peacekeepers to protect civilians has outpaced their actual capacity to do so, while their deployment 'in increasingly dangerous environments' only compounds the difficulties confronted. 4 The panel found that, confronted by a rapid increase in global demand, the UN had been unable to deploy sufficient peacekeeping forces rapidly enough and had come to rely on underresourced military and police forces. Furthermore, a perceptible 'robust turn' in UN peacekeeping presents a series of dilemmas and issues that must be addressed if the long-term credibility of UN peace operations is to be retained, let alone enhanced. If these issues are not confronted, there is a risk that the gap between expectations and capacities will widen further, raising the possibility of major crises in peacekeeping such as those experienced in Rwanda (1994), Bosnia (1995) and Sierra Leone (2000).In setting out to understand these changes, and their implications for UN peace operations, this article proceeds in four parts. The first identifies three transformations in peace operations-the emergence of the protection of civilians as a central mission goal (with accompanying principle of due diligence); a so-called 'robust turn' towards greater preparedness to use force; and a subtle move away from peacekeeping as an impartial overseer of peace processes towards the goal of stabilization. The second section identifies the challenges posed to contemporary UN peace operations by these transformations. The third section evaluates the UN's efforts thus far to make peace operations fit for purpose in the twenty-first century, noting that while significant progress has been made in areas such as policy and guidance, force sustainment and deployment, and the application of force enablers, there remains a considerable way to go. The remaining gaps, and suggestions for how to close them through further reform, are examined in the fourth section. The changing nature of UN peace operationsOnce conceived of primarily as a buffer between warring states or a tool for monitoring the implementation of ceasefire or peace agreements, UN peace operations have evolved into one of international society's principal collective means of maintaining international peace and security. This shift has been accompanied by inflated expectations about the capacity of peacekeepers to mend broken states and societies and to impose their will on recalcitrant armed groups-expectations that have tended to obscure the fact that sustainable peace can be established only 3 Uniting our strengths for peace: politics, partnership and people, rep...

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