Transforming Zones of Exclusion to Zones of Inclusion? Local-Level UN Peacekeeping Deployments and Educational Attainment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryce W Reeder ◽  
Marc S Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Gender Disparity ◽  
Exact Matching ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Higher Educational Attainment ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Abstract Higher educational attainment levels are associated with better public health outcomes, lower levels of income inequality, more participation in democratic instructions, and safer communities. Promoting education in war-torn societies can have an immediate impact in mitigating violence and play a significant role in preventing conflict recurrence. This study investigates UN peacekeeping missions’ role in this process, positing that UN deployments to locations experiencing armed conflict lead to higher levels of educational attainment by increasing local stability, incentivizing individuals to return to school while also making renewed investment worthwhile. Testing this logic using new data on local-level educational attainment across Africa from 2000 to 2014, this study finds that conflict zones where the UN maintained peacekeeping deployments saw an increase in educational attainment when compared to those that did not, a finding corroborated by coarsened exact matching. Maintaining a modest number of UN forces is shown to increase female attainment by at least 4.89 percent and reduce gender disparity by 5.13 percent, revealing the critical role UN peacekeeping plays in restoring education in the shadow of political violence.

An Analysis of UN Peacekeeping as Pakistan’s Soft Power Asset

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ume Farwa ◽  
Ghazanfar Ali Garewal
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Protective Role ◽  
International Community ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The People ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

The power of attraction and admiration is soft power. Generally, it is perceived that hard power cannot generate soft power, but the protective role of military in humanitarian crises and conflicts negates this prevailing misperception by specifying their contexts and effective utilizations; hard power assets can be transformed into soft power resources. This paper argues that the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions are the source of soft power and Pakistan, being an active participant in this field, can utilize this asset for shaping the preferences of others. Overall, it did earn admiration from international community and managed to build its soft image abroad through peacekeeping missions. Pakistani blue helmets not only earned the admiration and appreciation of the people of the conflict-zones and earned praises, but from international community also. However, to what extent has the country utilized this asset of soft power to exercise its influence in the global arena remains debatable. Although Pakistan’s UN Peacekeeping missions have been an instrument of building the country’s soft image, it is publicized in a far less productive manner. Peacekeeping can be used as a means to enhance the country’s presence and the level of participation in both international and regional organizations. By effective application of soft power strategy in tandem with public diplomacy, Pakistan’s UN peacekeeping can provide the country with the platform where its narratives can be projected effectively and its influence can be exercised adroitly.

scholarly journals Unintended Consequences: Reconsidering the Effects of UN Peacekeeping on State-sponsored Violence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William George Nomikos
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Armed Violence

This essay challenges theoretical and empirical arguments about peacebuilding effectiveness that put the state at the center of United Nations peace operations. We argue that state-centric UN peacebuilding operations inadvertently incentivize local-level violence in post-conflict zones. We demonstrate that when the UN supports central governments it unintentionally empowers non-professionalized militaries, paramilitaries, and warlords to settle local scores. Armed violence against civilians in turn triggers a vicious cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals. As an alternative to state-centric peacebuilding operations that incentivize local violence, we suggest that the UN should shift strategic resources away from central governments and toward UN policing, support of traditional and religious authorities, and the training of local security institutions.

scholarly journals Private Military and Security Companies in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Problems and Perspectives

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
М. A. Nebolsina
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Security Market ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Security Industry ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Private Security Industry ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Security Companies

While some of the UN member states refrain from providing peacekeepers due to security reasons, the UN frequently turns to the private security market for support. In turn, private military and security companies (PMSCs) take on risky missions and fill in the procurement gaps. It is common practice to criticize PMSCs for not having a clear international legal status, operating in the “grey” area of the law and not being accountable for their actions. Furthermore, the UN often equates PMSCs to mercenaries of the past and calls for strict regulation and surveillance of their activities. This practice has remained unchanged since the 1992 reforms, and the UN has done nothing to reduce the involvement of PMSCs in peacekeeping missions. On the contrary, it has, under pressure from lobbyists for the private security industry, actually increased security expenditures for PMSCs by unprecedented amounts. The UN’s position as a unique universal intergovernmental organization exempts it from a great deal of transparency, accountability and reform. While the private security industry includes various PMSCs that compete for contracts in conflict zones and post-conflict areas, the UN does not have any kind of competitor in peacekeeping procedures. The UN criticizes PMSCs for their blatant human rights violations and disregard of international law, yet continues to contract them for its peacekeeping missions. This paper examines the problem of involving PMSCs in UN peacekeeping operations. It aims to answer the following main questions: How do PMSCs, as partners of the UN in the peacekeeping process, contribute to the protection of human rights, which is one of the organization’s basic declared principles? Can PMSCs become a recognized instrument within the UN system? Would UN peacekeeping eff orts improve as a result of hiring PMSCs?

scholarly journals ‘Velvet Triangles’ in Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Nur Azizah ◽  
Muhammad Ammar Hidayahtulloh ◽  
Lintang Cahya Perwita ◽  
Ali Maksum
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Triangular Network ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS Agenda) has been recognized as a landmark in the history of global efforts to maintain international peace and security by centering women on the agenda. Indonesia has shown its commitment to WPS Agenda by adopting its first National Action Plan (NAP) in 2014. On top of that, Indonesia is also committed to increasing the number of female peacekeepers in the UN peacekeeping missions. This research aims to examine how WPS Agenda as a global normative framework diffuses and is internalized in Indonesia. This research employed a feminist institutionalist approach and a qualitative method. Using the concept of ‘velvet triangles’ by Alison Woodward (2004) as our theoretical framework, we argue that the triangular network of velvet actors—consisting of feminist bureaucrats, civil society organizations’ activists, and gender experts—plays a critical role in making a considerably important space for the diffusion of WPS Agenda within Indonesia’s domestic politics and foreign policy debates. In concluding the article, we propose two considerations taking into account the formal and informal arrangement of the velvet constellation and the transnational scale of the network’s actors to provide a more nuanced conceptual definition of velvet triangles.

Suicide after Deployment in UN Peacekeeping Missions—A Danish Pilot Study

Crisis ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Hansen-Schwartz ◽  
G. Jessen ◽  
K. Andersen ◽  
H.O. Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Summary: This pilot study looks at the frequency of suicide among Danish soldiers who took part in the UN mandated forces (UNMF) during the 1990's. In a contingent of nearly 4000 Danish UN soldiers four suicides were documented, two of whom committed suicide less than one month before deployment and two who committed suicide within a year after discharge from mission. Contributing factors, prevention strategies, and implications for future research are discussed.

UN Peacekeeping Operations and Successful Military Diplomacy: A Case Study of Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bakare Najimdeen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Military Diplomacy

Few years following its creation, the United Nations (UN) with the blessing of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided to establish the UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO), as a multilateral mechanism geared at fulfilling the Chapter VII of the UN Charter which empowered the Security Council to enforce measurement to maintain or restore international peace and security. Since its creation, the multilateral mechanism has recorded several successes and failures to its credit. While it is essentially not like traditional diplomacy, peacekeeping operations have evolved over the years and have emerged as a new form of diplomacy. Besides, theoretically underscoring the differences between diplomacy and foreign policy, which often appear as conflated, the paper demonstrates how diplomacy is an expression of foreign policy. Meanwhile, putting in context the change and transformation in global politics, particularly global conflict, the paper argues that traditional diplomacy has ceased to be the preoccupation and exclusive business of the foreign ministry and career diplomats, it now involves foot soldiers who are not necessarily diplomats but act as diplomats in terms of peacekeeping, negotiating between warring parties, carrying their countries’ emblems and representing the latter in resolving global conflict, and increasingly becoming the representation of their countries’ foreign policy objective, hence peacekeeping military diplomacy. The paper uses decades of Pakistan’s peacekeeping missions as a reference point to establish how a nation’s peacekeeping efforts represent and qualifies as military diplomacy. It also presented the lessons and good practices Pakistan can sell to the rest of the world vis-à-vis peacekeeping and lastly how well Pakistan can consolidate its peacekeeping diplomacy.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 1992–1996

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adekeye Adebajo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Tight Control ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Egyptian scholar-diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s relationship with the UN Security Council was a difficult one, resulting eventually in him earning the unenviable record of being the only Secretary-General to have been denied a second term in office. Boutros-Ghali bluntly condemned the double standards of the powerful Western members of the Council—the Permanent Three (P3) of the US, Britain, and France—in selectively authorizing UN interventions in “rich men’s wars” in Europe while ignoring Africa’s “orphan conflicts.” The Council’s powerful members ignored many of his ambitious ideas, preferring instead to retain tight control of decision-making on UN peacekeeping missions. Boutros-Ghali worked with the Security Council to establish peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Cambodia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Somalia.

scholarly journals Suicide after Service in UN Peacekeeping Missions—A Danish Pilot Study

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (S1) ◽  
pp. S42-S43
Author(s):  
J Hansen-Schwartz ◽  
G Jessen ◽  
K Andersen ◽  
HO Jorgensen
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

scholarly journals Mechanisms linking teenage mothers’ educational attainment with self-reported health at age 50

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Maslowsky ◽  
C. Emily Hendrick ◽  
Haley Stritzel
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Determinant ◽  
Early Childbearing ◽  
Partner Characteristics ◽  
Higher Educational Attainment ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Social Determinant Of Health

Abstract Background Early childbearing is associated with adverse health and well-being throughout the life course for women in the United States. As education continues to be a modifiable social determinant of health after a young woman gives birth, the association of increased educational attainment with long-term health for women who begin childbearing as teenagers is worthy of investigation. Methods Data are from 301 mothers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 who gave birth prior to age 19. We estimated path models to assess women’s incomes, partner characteristics, and health behaviors at age 40 as mediators of the relationship between their educational attainment and self-rated general health at age 50. Results After accounting for observed background factors that select women into early childbearing and lower educational attainment, higher levels of education (high school diploma and GED attainment vs. no degree) were indirectly associated with higher self-rated health at age 50 via higher participant income at age 40. Conclusions As education is a social determinant of health that is amenable to intervention after a teen gives birth, our results are supportive of higher educational attainment as a potential pathway to improving long-term health outcomes of women who begin childbearing early.

Beyond Keeping Peace: United Nations Effectiveness in the Midst of Fighting

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA HULTMAN ◽  
JACOB KATHMAN ◽  
MEGAN SHANNON
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
United Nations Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
The Cold War

While United Nations peacekeeping missions were created to keep peace and perform post-conflict activities, since the end of the Cold War peacekeepers are more often deployed to active conflicts. Yet, we know little about their ability to manage ongoing violence. This article provides the first broad empirical examination of UN peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing battlefield violence in civil wars. We analyze how the number of UN peacekeeping personnel deployed influences the amount of battlefield deaths in all civil wars in Africa from 1992 to 2011. The analyses show that increasing numbers of armed military troops are associated with reduced battlefield deaths, while police and observers are not. Considering that the UN is often criticized for ineffectiveness, these results have important implications: if appropriately composed, UN peacekeeping missions reduce violent conflict.

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