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Towards UN Liberal Democratic Peacebuilding(s)

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Peacebuilding in the United Nations

Part of the book series: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies ((RCS))

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Abstract

This chapter argues that the concept of UN peacebuilding, informed by a simplified and politicised version of theories about the liberal democratic peace, gradually informed how individuals in the UN milieu understood peacebuilding and offered a rationale for the promotion of liberal democracies in post-armed conflict situations, enacting a range of specific policies and initiatives to that end. It further argues that, under the tenure of Kofi Annan, the specific meaning of peacebuilding changed as the notion of liberal democracy that informed UN peacebuilding gradually shifted away from the one prevailing under Boutros-Ghali. Despite such changes, the chapter demonstrates that the liberal democratic peace framework remained the main referential underpinning how peacebuilding was understood in and around the UN. While analysing the different meanings of peacebuilding under Boutros-Ghali and Annan at the headquarters level, the chapter reviews concrete peacebuilding initiatives carried out by UN peace operations from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, seeking to establish connections between policy making developments in New York and their manifestation in the field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For detailed and well-informed accounts of the negotiations in Dumbarton Oaks (August–October 1944), Yalta (February 1945) and San Francisco (April–June 1945), see, respectively, Hilderbrand (1990), Plokhy (2010), and Schlesinger (2003).

  2. 2.

    This rationale is also given by Edward Stettinius, head of the US Delegation in the San Francisco conference, while reporting on negotiations about the Charter to the US President. According to him, the Purposes “are binding on the Organization, its organs, and its agencies, indicating the direction their activities should take and the limitations within which their activities should proceed” (Stettinius apud Goodrich et al. 1969: 25).

  3. 3.

    Weiss et al. (2007: 4, 5) depict collective security as an expansion of the notion of collective self-defence, in which states may use force to protect themselves from an external attack. A system of collective security should not be confused with a system of collective self-defence; see Kelsen (1948) for an elaboration.

  4. 4.

    For good analyses on the origins of peacekeeping and early operations, see, among others, Bellamy et al. (2010: 71–92), Berdal (2008a), Fetherston (1994: 8–16), Goulding (1993), and Diehl (1993: 14–31). The review in this section builds upon a range of references, including Adebajo (2011), Bellamy et al. (2010), MacQueen (2006), and Durch (1993a).

  5. 5.

    Kanninen and Piiparinen (2014) offer an overview of the activities of the working group with a focus on issues related to early warning and preventive diplomacy.

  6. 6.

    As anticipated in the previous chapter, this contention adds a fourth part to the sequence outlined by de Soto and del Castillo (1994: 70) when illustrating the UN intervention in El Salvador.

  7. 7.

    Following the identified need for integration and coordination, Boutros-Ghali established an interdepartmental task force to produce an inventory of instruments available at the time to the United Nations in the area of post-conflict peacebuilding. The inventory is available as DESIPA (1996).

  8. 8.

    The latter had become particularly high in the priority of UN reforms following the conservative administration of Ronald Reagan in the United States (1981–1989), which had held back funding to the UN system based on claims over inefficiency and lack of accountability. For an overview of the UN financial crisis in the 1980s, see Taylor (1991). In 1993, in his report as the outgoing Under-Secretary-General (USG) for Administration and Management, Thornburgh (1993) depicted the UN as an institution lacking efficient and adequate management systems to deal with the requirements of the post-cold war world.

  9. 9.

    Michael Doyle, then Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, remembers being actively involved in the drafting of those statements (Doyle 2012).

  10. 10.

    According to Annan, what Kant defined as ‘republic’ was “essentially what today we call liberal or pluralistic democracies” (Annan 2012a: 1529).

  11. 11.

    For in-depth analyses of the UN role in the country, see Hughes (2009), Richmond and Franks (2009: 83–108), Howard (2008: 260–298), Smith and Dee (2006), and Chopra (2000).

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  1. United Nations, Kabul, Afghanistan

    Fernando Cavalcante

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Cavalcante, F. (2019). Towards UN Liberal Democratic Peacebuilding(s). In: Peacebuilding in the United Nations. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03864-9_6

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