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'Providing Peacekeepers' analyses the factors which encourage (or discourage) states from contributing their soldiers to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations. It focuses on the UN's experiences during the 21st century and does so through 4 thematic and 16 case study chapters

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION -- Notes -- CHAPTER 2: UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING -- Pacific Settlement and Collective Security -- Peacekeeping -- Conclusion -- Notes -- CHAPTER 3: THE UNITED NATIONS INTERIM FORCE IN LEBANON -- UNIFIL in Lebanon -- Performance and Problems -- Conclusion -- Notes -- CHAPTER 4: THE MULTINATIONAL FORCE IN BEIRUT -- The Invasion of Lebanon -- MNF-I -- MNF-II -- Conclusion -- Notes -- CHAPTER 5: AUTHORITY -- International Society -- U.N. as Authoritative Expositor of International Values -- Authority without Power -- Notes -- CHAPTER 6: POWER -- Power without Authority -- Great Power Responsibility -- Notes -- CHAPTER 7: LEGITIMACY -- Power of Legitimacy -- Power without Legitimacy -- Notes -- CHAPTER 8: FORCE -- Enforcement without Authority -- Between the Devil of Impotence and the Deep Blue Sea of Intervention -- Force and National Interest -- Conclusion -- Notes -- CHAPTER 9: LESSONS FROM VIETNAM -- The ICSC in Vietnam -- Lessons -- Notes -- CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION -- Notes -- Appendix A: MNF-I -- Appendix Β: MNF-II -- Appendix C: United Nations Resolutions -- Bibliography -- Index of Names.

Examines range, extent, and frequency of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace-enforcing activities. Excerpted from the World Peace Encyclopedia.

Since the failures of the United Nations of the early 1990s, the protection of civilians has evolved as a new norm for United Nations peacekeeping operations. However, a 2014 United Nations report found that while peacekeeping mandates often include the use of force to protect civilians, this has routinely been avoided by member states. What can account for this gap between the apparently solid normative foundations of the protection of civilians and the wide variation in implementation? This article approaches the question by highlighting normative ambiguity as a fundamental feature of international norms. Thereby, we consider implementation as a political, dynamic process where the diverging understandings that member states hold with regard to the protection of civilians norm manifest and emerge. We visualize this process in combining a critical-constructivist approach to norms with practice theories. Focusing on the practices of member states' military advisers at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and their positions on how the protection of civilians should be implemented on the ground, we draw attention to their agency in norm implementation at an international site. Military advisers provide links between national ministries and contingents in the field, while also competing for being recognized as competent performers of appropriate implementation practices. Drawing on an interpretivist analysis of data generated through an online survey, a half-day workshop and interviews with selected delegations, the article adds to the understanding of norms in international relations while also providing empirical insights into peacekeeping effectiveness.

Examining the efficacy of U.N. peace efforts, Dr. Ramesh Thakur compares limited peacekeeping through U.N. authority with more coercive means such as the Multinational Force (MNF) in Lebanon. He finds that the role of the U.S.-led MNF coalition cannot be justified in terms of great-power responsibility for ensuring a stable international order, since the coalition has attempted to substitute military power for authoritative peacekeeping. When MNF legitimacy was questioned and authority was challenged, the MNF's use of force in response to those challenges switched the coalition's role from third-party peacekeeper to factional participant. As a result, every successive attempt to strengthen the MNF mandate has further subordinated the concept of neutral international peacekeeping to calculated support of national interests. If reasoned attempts to keep the peace are not to collapse into exercises in national self-interest, then peacekeeping responsibilities must remain with the U.N., supported by the great powers: Only the U.N. can provide an authoritative exposition of values within the context of international society and bestow international legitimacy upon peacekeeping activities; only the great powers can back the U.N. with requisite force.