Suchergebnisse

The European Union (EU) repeatedly expresses its support to principles and values of the United Nations (UN), seeing the UN as the core of a rules-based global order. How does the EU perform in contributing personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, and what factors affect their personnel commitments? Recent work shows that the size of the deployed personnel matters for peacekeeping effectiveness, and personnel commitment is a crucial effort by the UN member states to prolong peace. This article's contribution is to conduct the first analysis on the EU member states' contribution rates on 53 UN peacekeeping operations throughout the last 30 years. By testing arguments of two general explanations for factors that affect peacekeeper contributions, the empirical findings reveal that although the EU members tend to contribute less to UN peacekeeping operations, they contribute significantly higher in the case of rising peacekeeper fatalities. However, the EU member states are less likely to contribute with humanitarian impulse or international security threat concerns. The findings suggest that no single theory can explain the contribution motives; instead, a wide range of interacting factors determine the decision to commit personnel to an operation.

In the final analysis, is the security dilemma inescapable? Or can the protagonists in world politics learn to live with never-ending insecurities and the risk of attack without producing precisely the outcomes that they wish to avoid? This article explores this fundamental problem for International Relations theory by performing a thought experiment, in which it applies lessons from aikido to world politics. A form of Japanese budo, or martial art, aikido provides practitioners with a method for harbouring insecurities, and for dealing with attacks that may or may not occur, by empathically caring for actual and potential attackers. The article builds on practice theory in assuming that any social order is constructed and internalised through practices, but also capable of change through the introduction and dissemination of new practices. Although an unlikely scenario, aikido practice could serve as such a method of fundamental transformation if widely applied in world politics. Empirical examples ranging from international apologies and security cooperation to foreign aid and peacekeeping operations are discussed, suggesting that contemporary world politics is at times already performed in accordance with aikido principles, albeit only imperfectly and partially.

Peace operations and associated peacekeeping research have changed dramatically over time. This article reviews the extent to which two prominent strands of peacekeeping research – behavioral-quantitative/quantitative and critical – have reflected changes in peacekeeping practice. Following critiques of how these approaches have fallen short, the article provides a research agenda for each research approach. The article concludes by addressing ways in which the two approaches might be bridged and the barriers to such collaboration therein.

Verhältnis zwischen Völker- und Verfassungsrecht - völkerrechtlich erlaubte Gewaltanwendung - Kampfführung nach den Regeln des ius in bello - Grundrechte des Grundgesetzes im bewaffneten Konflikt - (mangelnde) Notwendigkeit eines Auslandseinsatzgesetzes - Reformbedürftigkeit der Wehrverfassung