Peacekeeping
Authors: Howard Lise Morjé 
Published: February 2021

Peacekeeping is unlike other forms of military intervention because of its founding three-part doctrine, comprising consent of the parties, impartiality, and the non-use of force except in self-defense (and, more recently, defense of the mandate). Peacekeeping is important to understand because it is the most frequent form of intervention today. As of March 2020, there were thirteen UN peacekeeping missions, mainly in Africa, and nearly 100,000 peacekeepers, including civilians and uniformed personnel (see Resources: Data Sources, Key Reports, and Policy Documents). This means there are more UN peacekeepers in conflict zones than any other type of multilateral troop (from, for example, the African Union, the European Union, ASEAN, or NATO). Moreover, despite media attention and arguments in the qualitative literature, peacekeeping is a highly effective type of multilateral action. This review focuses on the explosion of top-rate publications on peacekeeping beginning in 2015. It begins with (1) the general overviews and the classics. It then turns to discussions and debates in the current peacekeeping literature about the following: (2) the remarkably affirmative findings in the positivistic literature on the protection of civilians; (3) peacekeeping’s beneficial effects on conflict contagion and war recurrence; (4) other favorable effects on post-conflict state institutions, democratization, and civil society; (5) qualitative and critical perspectives on peacekeeping; (6) “how peacekeeping works” and debates about the use of force; (7) gender in peacekeeping and sexual abuse and exploitation; (8) peacekeeping by actors other than the UN; (9) works by peacekeeping leaders and practitioners; and (10) resources for peacekeeping research. Qualitative and quantitative scholars have very different approaches to the study of peacekeeping, and very different resulting analyses. Positivistic analyses (which, by definition, take into consideration both sides of the coin) generally find many positive effects from peacekeeping. In comparing situations with and without peacekeepers, they find that peacekeepers correlate with fewer civilian deaths, a geographic contraction of conflict, less return to civil war, better gender-balancing in security institutions, improved justice and security sectors, greater chances of democratization, increased robustness of civil society, and less sexual violence during conflict. Peacekeepers, however, do increase the risk of transactional sex and sex trafficking. In contrast, critical approaches are, by definition, critical. Critical and many qualitative scholars—often based on firsthand experience with the United Nations—see a peacekeeping world of cultural misunderstanding, Western arrogance, self-defeating practices, unintended consequences, and liberal cosmopolitanism gone wrong. Both perspectives hold merit: researchers have found numerous robust relationships between peacekeepers and positive outcomes, despite self-defeating practices. In order to understand contemporary peacekeeping, it is necessary to read widely in both literatures. This review takes into account publications by dozens of top scholars, analysts, and practitioners of peacekeeping.