'MIND THE GAP': NEO-TRUSTEESHIP AND PATH DEPENDENCE IN CONTEMPORARY PEACE OPERATIONS.

The specter of a long-term administrative role for the UN in post-conflict societies including Kosovo, Haiti, and Timor-Leste has led observers to dub such problematic arrangements 'neo-trusteeship.' The main supposition of this research is that 'neo-trusteeship' is primarily a by-product of the gap between Charter obligations to maintain peace and security and the resources committed to the UN to attend to those obligations. This paper draws upon the insights of the path dependency 'approach' (Pierson, 2004; Thelen, 2003) as well as two recent UN operations in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (UNTAET and UNMIT) in advancing the case that 'mechanisms of reproduction' common to the dynamic of path dependence are responsible for the emergence and reification of the 'neo-trusteeship' model in UN peace operations. In doing so, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the chief obstacle to the UN's ability to effectively deliver on its expansive mandates in post-conflict societies arises from a disjuncture between the increasing returns associated with (and accounting for) that agenda and the negative externalities of resource constraints and risk-averse decision making that characterize UN operations 'on the ground'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]