Diversity between Force Commander and Blue Helmets

This chapter explores the relationship between Force Commanders and their peacekeeping troops. The qualitative material suggests that strategic divergences or cross-cultural misunderstandings between peacekeepers and their Force Commander may jeopardize a mission’s effectiveness. Yet, a mission composed of troops with high distance from the Force Commander can be interpreted as a signal of the commitment of the wider United Nations, representing global interest in a local context. Moreover, when the potential negative effects of greater or lesser dissimilarity between Force Commanders and troops are tempered by contact and learning, peacekeeping effectiveness should improve. The net effect, assessed through quantitative analysis, suggests that dissimilarity between Force Commanders and peacekeepers matters mostly for protecting civilians, whereas it does not seem to be relevant for resolving the conflict between belligerents. Conversely, a greater linguistic distance between the Force Commander and Blue Helmets might hamper civilian protection.

Introduction

This introductory chapter starts by presenting the core focus of the book—which is about diversity of mission composition within UN peace operations—and its objectives. The book asks two questions. The first is conceptual and descriptive: what do we mean by mission composition in a peacekeeping mission? The introduction highlights the importance of focusing on diversity of mission composition against the backdrop of recent trends in UN peacekeeping. It presents the analytical framework and the four key dimensions of mission composition: field diversity, top leadership diversity, vertical leadership distance, and horizontal distance. The second question of the book is explanatory: does mission composition in United Nations peacekeeping matter? The Introduction also presents the scope of the explanatory part of the research, where we set to explore how each dimension of mission composition affects peacekeeping effectiveness. The remainder of the Introduction presents the mixed-method design adopted in the book and its strategies of data collection as well as the contributions and limitations of the book. It concludes by outlining the book structure.

Conclusions

This chapter summarizes the mains findings of the book: diversity matters and affects peacekeeping effectiveness. These results have important policy implications and can be clustered around two core points. First, diversity of Blue Helmets and diversity of top leadership may increase peacekeeping effectiveness. Second, and at the same time, the effects of diversity are contextual and contingent. In fact, looking at the relation between peacekeepers and Force Commanders, proximity between them is generally associated with better performances. Further, homogeneity between local populations and peacekeepers, or low distance between them, is also related to low levels of hostility and casualties. The chapter reflects upon the policy implications, particularly the need to manage diversity to minimize instances of coordination problems and misunderstandings. It finally outlines avenues for future research.

Mission Composition and Mechanisms of Peacekeeping

This chapter introduces the analytical and theoretical framework for the entirety of the book. First, it establishes three key concepts for this research: mission composition, diversity, and distance. These concepts are used to explore whether and how differences within peacekeepers, between the peacekeepers and the local populations, and as well as between the leaders of the operation affect the performances of the operation. Second, it reviews the current analytical toolbox of peacekeeping missions and highlights the limitations of only conceptualizing peacekeeping missions as present or absent and in terms of mission size. Third, it presents four new mechanisms through which mission diversity shapes its effectiveness: Informative Trust, Informative Communicability, Resolve Deterrence, and Skilled Persuasion.

Diversity between Blue Helmets and Locals

This chapter turns to the external dimension of mission composition and explores to what extent similarity between the peacekeepers and the local population matters for mission’s effectiveness. In the qualitative part, it finds that smaller cultural distances might imply the existence of shared norms, practices, and languages, and these qualities might simplify day-to-day interactions. Cultural proximity also affects the perception of impartiality and unbiasedness of the Blue Helmets. Turning to a large-N analysis, the chapter shows that greater diversity between the peacekeeping force and the host country’s population correspond to higher levels of violence against civilians and higher battle-related deaths. Therefore, optimizing peacekeeping deployments at lower levels of cultural distance seems to be beneficial in terms of mission performance.

Diversity within Mission Leadership

This chapter explores the issue of diversity within mission’s leadership: between the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and the Force Commanders (FC). It asks how this affects operational performances. In three case studies, UNIFIL II, MINUSMA and MINUSCA, the chapter finds the presence of communication and coordination problems, mainly related to personalities rather than diversity. Occasionally, the problem was a lack of experience of leadership. Another issue that emerges is the difficulty of SRSGs to act as the principal in relation to security issues. Yet, with learning and expert advisors these dimensions can easily be overcome. The chapter then introduces new data on SRSGs and FCs for all the operations in the post-Cold War period. The quantitative analysis shows a negative correlation between diversity within a mission’s leadership and the level of civilian victimization and battle deaths. As such, diversity seems to have beneficial conflict reduction effects.

Blue Helmets’ Diversity

This chapter addresses the question of whether it is better or worse to have many troops from multiple national armies within a United Nations peacekeeping mission. On the one hand, high levels of diversity create obvious organizational challenges and coordination problems. On the other, high levels of diversity produce a mix of complementary perspectives, skills, and solutions. Through case study analysis, the chapter traces the connections between field diversity and mission outcomes as they appear in three missions: UN missions in Lebanon (UNIFIL II), in Mali (MINUSMA), and in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). Using statistical analysis, the chapter shows that high levels of field diversity have a substantial effect on the protection of civilian lives and reduces the number of battle-related deaths.