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Abstract
Looking back over the past seventy-five years of UN peacekeeping, the most enduring question has been: Is peacekeeping effective? Historically, most peacekeeping operations have been. However, peacekeeping is currently suffering from a significant trust deficit. One important factor that differentiates contemporary peacekeeping operations with a stabilization mandate from the historic record is the absence of a viable political or peace process. When security is not directed to serve a peace process, it produces a stabilization dilemma: the more effectively a peace operation protects and achieves stability, the less incentive there is for ruling political elites to find long-term political solutions. This dilemma generates several perverse effects, including prolonging the conflict, trapping operations in place with no exit options, increasing the resilience of armed groups, and embedding peacekeeping in the local political economy. The article identifies five factors that help prevent the stabilization dilemma and influence the effectiveness of peace operations.

The African Union is coordinating the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Africa, but the measures introduced are also significantly disrupting the reforms, programmes and operations of the AU. ; publishedVersion

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted UN peacekeeping operations. In the short-term, activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen, and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well, but even more extreme changes are likely in the medium term, as the global economic recession that will follow in the wake of the virus may force UN peace operations to drastically contract in size and scope. ; publishedVersion

We are experiencing a momentous phase-shift with potentially significant implications for UN peacekeeping. The unipolar era is waning in the face of a significant increase in the economic and political influence of countries like China and India in the global system. It is still uncertain what may follow the unipolar era, but there are signs that the next stage will be a new multipolar era, in which several states–the United States, China, Germany, India, and Russia, to name a few–each have access to networks and forms of power sufficient to prevent any of the others from unilaterally dominating the global order. Another emerging characteristic of this transition is that several international and regional organizations, numerous large companies, and some non-governmental agencies, can exert significant influence on the global system on selected issues where they have a substantial capacity or competency. What implications will these changes at the global systems level have for UN peacekeeping operations? I will highlight three themes–strategic political coherence, the employment of force, and the outer limits of peace operations–that may suggest how UN peacekeeping are likely to adapt to a new multipolar world order. ; How UN Peacekeeping Operations Can Adapt to a New Multipolar World Order ; publishedVersion

Between the African Union, European Union, OSCE, NATO and United Nations there are approximately 160,000 civilian, police and military personnel deployed in more than 50 missions. These missions have all been forced to take unprecedented steps to adapt and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be just the beginning and much more significant reductions and changes in the way these operations function may be needed over the coming months. ; publishedVersion

This report analyses the coherence and coordination dilemma in peacebuilding systems, with special reference to the UN integrated missions concept. It argues that all peacebuilding agents are interdependent in that they cannot individually achieve the goal of the overall peacebuilding system. Pursuing coherence helps to manage the interdependencies that bind the peacebuilding system together, and coordination is the means through which individual peacebuilding agents can ensure that they are connected to the overall strategic framework process that binds the peacebuilding system together. The report is focussed on two areas where the lack of coherence holds the most promise for improving peacebuilding coherence. The first is the need to generate a clearly articulated overall peacebuilding strategy. The second is the need to operationalise the principle of local ownership. The report argues that without meaningfully addressing these shortcomings peacebuilding systems will continue to suffer from poor rates of sustainability and success. ; Utenriksdepartementet

Zu seinem Amtsantritt hatte UN-Generalsekretär António Guterres deutlich gemacht: Die Prävention von Konflikten muss für die Vereinten Nationen ganz oben auf der Agenda stehen. Aus diesem Grund arbeiten die Vereinten Nationen aktuell an der Umsetzung und Ausgestaltung der 'sustaining peace'-Resolutionen, die von der Generalversammlung und dem Sicherheitsrat 2016 verabschiedet wurden. Welche Herausforderungen stellen sich bei der Umsetzung der Resolutionen? Wie wirkt sich die aktuelle geopolitische Lage aus? Und welche Chancen bietet der neue Ansatz, um die UN fit für das 21. Jahrhundert zu machen?