Power, politics and perception: the impact of foreign policy on civilian–peacekeeper relations

Newby, Vanessa

doi:10.1080/01436597.2017.1334542

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…An impressive set of new studies has focused on peacekeepers’ ability to implement stated mandates, thanks to a renewed focus on activities and what peacekeepers do (Blair et al, 2020; Di Salvatore et al, 2022). Along similar lines, a related but distinct body of literature has started to explore qualitatively what drives particular interpretations of their mandate and subsequent behavior (Howard, 2019; Newby, 2018; Ruffa, 2018; von Billerbeck, 2017).…”

Section: Previous Research On Peacekeepers’ Interpretation Of the Man...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Meaning making in peacekeeping missions: mandate interpretation and multinational collaboration in the UN mission in Mali

Ruffa

Rietjens

2022

European Journal of International Relations

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Peacekeeping helps to prevent conflict and to protect civilians. But how does it work to achieve those aims? Notwithstanding a growing recognition that peacekeeping mandates alone do not directly determine what actually happens in the field, we still know little about how—once deployed—military units translate an ambiguous mandate into action. In this paper, we focus on one dimension of peacekeepers’ behavior that has become increasingly important, namely, how peacekeepers relate to other military units with whom they are supposed to implement their mandate. We systematically document how mandate interpretations emerge and how they influence peacekeepers’ understanding of other troops they work with. Central to this is peacekeepers’ meaning making, a concept we borrow from the sociological literature, which refers to the common and human process through which individuals give meaning to their surrounding context. Drawing on nearly 120 interviews with peacekeepers deployed to the United Nations (UN) mission in Mali (2014–2019), we identify three different ways by which peacekeepers interpret their mandate and interact with other contingents: Voltaire’s garden; building bridges; and othering. Acknowledging peacekeepers’ agency and the social dimension of peacekeeping has important implications for both scholarly and policy debates.

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Section: Previous Research On Peacekeepers’ Interpretation Of the Man...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Meaning making in peacekeeping missions: mandate interpretation and multinational collaboration in the UN mission in Mali

Ruffa

Rietjens

2022

European Journal of International Relations

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“…More specifically, feminist security studies and critical military studies provide fertile ground for the analysis of embodied ethical experiences by focusing on actual human relations between people (Wibben 2011, 100). Such research focuses, amongst other things, on the ethical relations emerging from the encounters between soldiers and local victims of war (Bergman Rosamond and Kronsell 2018) or between locals and peacekeepers (Newby 2018) and/or the structural factors underpinning relations between soldiers and their home nation or armed forces (Kronsell and Svedberg 2001;Kuehnel and Wilén 2018). Common to such research is that it does not neglect individual embodied experiences within the military or in the context of conflict and war (Sylvester 2013a(Sylvester , 2013bEnloe 2010;Wibben 2011Wibben , 2016Bergman Rosamond and Kronsell 2018).…”

Section: The Cosmopolitan Location Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmopolitanism and individual ethical reflection – the embodied experiences of Swedish veterans

Rosamond

Kronsell

2020

Critical Military Studies

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This article aims to enable a conversation between cosmopolitan thought, with focus on individual ethical experiences and reflections, and research on embodied military experiences. While we derive our ethical reasoning from cosmopolitanism, we concede that it lacks sensitivity to individuals' other-regarding reflections and acts. Moreover, it does not sufficiently problematize the ways in which cosmopolitan deliberations are mediated in consideration of other desires and interests -what we define as mediated cosmopolitanism. To illustrate and substantiate our theoretical claims we draw on a selection of interviews and other material. We provide a two-step analysis, first by identifying the key themes in Sweden's cosmopolitan military self-narrative, enabling us to determine the extent to which it intersects with individual veterans' ethical reflections. Second, we conduct a discursive analysis of veterans' embodied ethical reflections, that have emerged from their participation in international operations. We identify a cosmopolitan sense of obligation amongst Swedish veterans across our material, with such individuals articulating a wish to do good beyond borders. Notions of cosmopolitan responsibility, moreover, arise from veterans' actual human encounters with civilians on the ground and through support for small-scale aid projects. However, veterans' ethical reflections are rarely purely cosmopolitan, rather mediated through their wish to serve the nation, support fellow soldiers as a key part of the operation, acquiring new professional skills and the desire to seek new adventures. We argue that the concept of mediated cosmopolitanism captures such mixed ethical sentiments and embodied experiences. We conclude by summarizing our key arguments.

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Protection of Civilians Mandates and ‘Collateral Damage’ of UN Peacekeeping Missions: Histories of Refugees from Darfur

Müller

2020

International Peacekeeping

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This article contributes to refining our understanding of how a robust Protection of Civilians mandate in peacekeeping missions may have unintended and harmful consequences for key local actors involved. It focuses specifically on local mission staff employed to collect vital data on human rights abuses, taking the example of the hybrid UN-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Darfur, UNAMID. It further explores how the UN system lacks a clear policy or automatically built-in mechanisms to prevent potential harm to those on whose local knowledge it relies. While predominately based on interview data with a small number of former UNAMID frontline human rights data-collectors from Darfur, the dynamics unveiled speak to more general issues when interrogating protection of civilians as the central pillar of UN peacekeeping missions, also beyond scenarios where the government of a host-state is hostile to the mission. The article concludes that the protection of local staff should feature prominently in any mission's approach, including an active commitment to withdraw staff from their positions if their security is threatened or compromised.

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Power, politics and perception: the impact of foreign policy on civilian–peacekeeper relations

Cited by 3 publications

References 35 publications

Meaning making in peacekeeping missions: mandate interpretation and multinational collaboration in the UN mission in Mali

Meaning making in peacekeeping missions: mandate interpretation and multinational collaboration in the UN mission in Mali

Cosmopolitanism and individual ethical reflection – the embodied experiences of Swedish veterans

Protection of Civilians Mandates and ‘Collateral Damage’ of UN Peacekeeping Missions: Histories of Refugees from Darfur

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