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22. Managing Complexity: Political and Managerial Challenges in UN Peace Operations
- Author:
- Adam Smith, editor and Caty Clement, editor
- Publication Date:
- 06-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- “Overstretched,” “underresourced,” and “overmatched” are terms commonly used to describe UN peacekeeping. The first is a result of the vast number of conflicts the Security Council has chosen to address with peace operations. The second is due to a lack of available specialized equipment, highly trained personnel, and funds—a constraint compounded by global recession. The final descriptor, “overmatched,” is, at least partly, a consequence of the challenging, complex environment in which the UN operates. The multiplicity of actors involved, the unpredictability of the environment, and the enormous obstacles to sustainable peace all suggest a complexity through which the UN—a large bureaucracy dependent on the will and capacity of its member states—is often unprepared to navigate.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Peace Studies, and United Nations
23. Issue Brief: Perspectives on the Peacebuilding Commission's Coordination Role
- Author:
- Jenna Slotin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- The founding resolutions of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) state that one of the main purposes of the commission is “to improve the coordination of all relevant actors within and outside the United Nations.” What does this mean for an intergovernmental advisory organ? Can the PBC really be expected to coordinate the many UN agencies, funds, and programs on the ground, let alone the many bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental actors that are present in a postconflict country? What does the PBC have to offer with respect to coordination?
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Peace Studies, and United Nations
24. Issue Brief: Perspectives on the Peacebuilding Commission and Mutual Accountability
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- Mutual accountability has become one of several principles that underpin the PBC's work. The commission has facilitated the articulation of mutual commitments as part of the peacebuilding frameworks developed in Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and the Central African Republic. This has begun to fill an important gap. But, the PBC has so far not fulfilled the full promise of this principle: to serve as a forum where national and international actors can hold each other to their commitments. This brief reflects on the PBC's experience with mutual accountability and puts it into a broader context to highlight why it is an area where the PBC can potentially add value.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Peace Studies, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Sierra Leone, and Burundi
25. Mediation and Peace Processes: IPI Blue Paper no. 8
- Author:
- Christoph Mikulaschek
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- Today more than ever before, armed conflicts are likely to end in mediated settlements. As mediation activity has surged since the end of the Cold War, its dynamics have undergone significant change as well.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Cold War, Diplomacy, Peace Studies, and War
26. Resource Scarcity: Responding to the Security Challenge
- Author:
- Richard A. Matthew
- Publication Date:
- 04-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- For over two centuries, the social effects of natural resource scarcity have been the subject of lively debate. On one side are those who contend that the planet's resource endowment cannot support increased consumption indefinitely. In 1798, for example, Thomas Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he argued “that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man.” The imbalance between human needs and food availability, Malthus predicted, would lead to famine, disease, and war. Writing 150 years later, Fairfield Osborn (1948: 200-201) reiterated this concern: “When will it be openly recognized that one of the principal causes of the aggressive attitudes of individual nations and of much of the present discord among groups of nations is traceable to diminishing productive lands and to increasing population pressures?” More recently, updated versions of the “scarcity conflict thesis,” developed by scholars such as Paul Ehrlich (1968), Donella Meadows (1972) and Thomas Homer-Dixon (1999), have been influential in both academic and policy circles around the world.
- Topic:
- Security, Agriculture, Demographics, Globalization, and Peace Studies
27. Governing the Global Economy: Strengthening Multilateral Institutions
- Author:
- Ngaire Woods
- Publication Date:
- 07-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- The good news in the global economy is that the past two decades have seen globalization proceed apace with unprecedented economic growth in several parts of the world. To date, sound economic policy has made hyperinflation a rarity. Rising commodity prices are fueling growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Formerly poor countries are emerging as major players in the world economy.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, International Organization, International Political Economy, and Peace Studies
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Bangkok
28. Southern Africa: Threats and Capabilities
- Author:
- Gavin Cawthra
- Publication Date:
- 11-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- The southern African region is now generally defined in political terms as those countries that are members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) (the geographic definition is usually somewhat more limited). Currently there are fifteen member states of the SADC: Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
- Topic:
- Development, Peace Studies, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Swaziland
29. North Africa: New Challenges, Old Regimes, and Regional Security
- Author:
- Claire Spencer
- Publication Date:
- 11-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- North Africa is often loosely defined, but for the purposes of this paper, it encompasses the states of the Arab Maghreb Union (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia) together with Egypt.1 With the exception of Mauritania, this group of states lies on the northern littoral of the African continent, between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Sahara to the south. This contiguity, however, has not automatically made for a cohesive region; differences between political and economic trajectories have overridden the social solidarities that still unite the peoples of North Africa.
- Topic:
- Security, Islam, and Peace Studies
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Libya, Algeria, North Africa, and Egypt
30. Nuclear Weapons: The Politics of Non-Proliferation
- Author:
- Christine Wing
- Publication Date:
- 04-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- Questions related to nuclear weapons are highly contested in the international arena—including the question of how these weapons constitute a challenge to human and international security. Does the challenge exist mainly in the incorporation of these weapons into military doctrines, or in the possibility that more states and/or terrorists will acquire nuclear capabilities? Have nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence prevented major wars, or are they ultimately destabilizing—or could both be true?
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons, Peace Studies, Weapons of Mass Destruction, International Security, and International Affairs