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1. The Factors Behind Successes and Failures of United Nations Peacekeeping Missions: A Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Author

Bayo, Ogunrotifa Ayodeji

Subjects
*PEACEBUILDING, *INTERNATIONAL security, *GUERRILLA warfare, *SOCIAL unrest
Abstract

The political trajectory that characterised post-cold war epoch underscores a dangerous centrifugal trend in the nature of violent conflict; civil unrest and guerrilla warfare that undermine the charter of United Nations of promoting international peace and security, and the discourse of peace coexistence at the forefront of international cooperation agenda in Africa, South East Europe and Middle East. The international response to this new wave of conflicts has been articulated through the structural mechanism of United Nations as peacekeeping intervention. Despite the successes and failures associated with UN peacekeeping interventions, the trickle of studies spawned by this quest has, developed into a flood of normative and empirical analyses of various aspects and process of International peacekeeping, while limited in unravel the factor that responsible for these successes and failures. This paper argues that the national interests of the super-powers are the potent factors that will determine the success and/or failure of UN peacekeeping operations, using peacekeeping experience in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) as a potential case. In this paper, an attempt is made to look at the framework of global politics within which peacekeeping unfolds and how it applies not only in DRC but also in Macedonia, Liberia and Somalia, thereby making it possible to develop an analytical construct for International peacekeeping successes and failures. The paper then concludes that given the contemporary geopolitics and the established structure of UN Security Council, if all super-powers are overtly and strongly committed to any UN peacekeeping operations and genuinely committed to resolving disputes in the trouble spots of the world without any primary or secondary interest in the conflicts involved, then the UN peacekeeping operations will be successful in restoring and sustaining permanent peace in the affected state(s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2012

2. International State-Building in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Challenges of Security, Elections and Civil Society: Notes from the Field on a Complex Paradigm.

Author

Barrios, Cristina and Ahamed, Said-Abass

Subjects
*INTERVENTION (International law), *INTERNATIONAL security, *PEACEKEEPING forces, *PEACEBUILDING
Abstract

The United Nations’ international mission in theDemocratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has most openly targeted the goals of security, elections and civil society development. At the same time,experts agreed that the country’s main problem is its failed-state, so ‘state-building’ has been added as an overarching goal. This has resultedin a sort of ‘international paradigm’ where goals are not complementary; moreover, they often imply trade-offs, and decisions and programs for oneare likely to undermine the other. On the one hand, the internationals substituted the state in the provision of security, bypassed it in the organization of elections, and created anartificial civil society, all of which undermined state-building with interventionist policies and overall control of funds and programs. On theother hand, for the sake of respecting sovereignty during this ‘transition process’, they co-opted the state of DRC in the plans to provide security,undertake elections, and develop civil society. However, this state was, and still is, a politically-biased authority taken over by corruption and elitism, and not a neutral set of institutions. The international missionis thus trapped in a complex paradigm based on wishful thinking but facing enormous challenges in the DRC reality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2008