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Does peacebuilding shape the regime type of countries where international missions are deployed? Most peacebuilding missions take place in authoritarian contexts, and seek to overcome the legacies of conflict by overseeing transitions to democratic rule; however, most regimes that experience peacebuilding still retain some form of authoritarian rule. In this article, we examine the extent to which international peacebuilding missions contribute to the consolidation of post-conflict authoritarian regimes even when their stated aims involve the promotion of democracy. We argue that international peacebuilders can act as enablers of authoritarianism in host countries. We distinguish this category of behaviour from explicit 'autocracy promotion', which implies intentional support to autocracy. Instead, enabling is often an unintended consequence, and we identify two mechanisms through which enabling occurs: by building the capacity of incumbent authoritarian leaders and by signalling a permissive environment for authoritarian behaviour for national actors. We illustrate our argument with the case of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The article provides a critical overview of the rise of resilience at the European Union (EU) level and to what extent its adoption is reshaping the terms of the EU's peacebuilding interventions. In reaction to the perceived shortcomings of the "liberal peace" approach, international actors, including the EU, are now describing their interventions through a new resilience discourse. The article argues that resilience offers a four-fold contribution to promoting sustainable peace: (1) a focus on complexity; (2) a systems approach; (3) a shift toward local capacities; and (4) an emphasis on human agency. Focusing on the EU's discourse and its peacebuilding practices in the Western Balkans, the evidence suggests that the EU has only embraced a systems/integrated approach, while neglecting deeper understandings of complexity, local capacities and human agency. As a result, the contribution of resilience to EU peacebuilding remains limited.

This article analyses a programme in which an alliance of ex-combatants from the British Army, and loyalist and republican ex-prisoner backgrounds, engaged with young people about cultures of militarism in Northern Ireland. It argues that the alliance's focus on cultures of militarism sets it apart from other ex-combatant groups; in particular its critique of state militarism alongside paramilitarism makes it a rare example of Richard Jackson's 'post liberal peace plus.' It finds that the alliance could enhance its engagement with young people by developing a more comprehensive programme that expands on the gender dynamics of militarism and on non-violent alternatives to military and paramilitary action. Noting that most peacebuilding funding depends on state-based sources, it concludes that the very critique of state militarism that makes the alliance such a compelling example of 'post-liberal peace plus' limits its ability to secure resources, highlighting a key obstacle to building a radical post-liberal peace.

This document summarises a list of prospective best practices in EU conflict prevention and peacebuilding that have been identified in various EU-CIVCAP research outputs. ; This document summarises a list of prospective best practices in EU conflict prevention and peacebuilding that have been identified in various EU-CIVCAP research outputs.

What does realism tell us about peaceful change? Although recognized by E.H. Carr as a fundamental problem of international politics, realists have rarely sought to tackle the issue of peaceful change directly. This chapter explores how the logic(s) of realism may contribute to our understanding of peaceful change - even if there is no escape from power politics. ; This chapter discusses how to understand peaceful change from the perspective of classical realism, structural realism and neoclassical realism.

Peace operations now conduct a wide range of different missions, but much of the scholarship has focused only on one mission at a time, and most often this is the task of monitoring cease-fires. This article draws attention to the phenomena of multiple missions within peace operations, and discusses some of the hurdles to understanding how such missions influence one another. We begin by providing a descriptive analysis of 11 different peace missions carried out by UN operations over the 1948–2015 period. Following a review of multiple-mission studies to date, we call attention to several problems with approaches taken for understanding peacekeeping outcomes. We then elucidate seven considerations or challenges in understanding how missions interact with one another and influence each other's success, providing guidelines for how to analyse them.

The UN Secretariat's role in the expansion of peacekeeping after the cold war is debated. Different theoretical accounts offer competing interpretations: principal–agent models and sociological institutionalism tend to emphasize the Secretariat's risk-averse behaviour; organizational learning scholarship and international political sociology find evidence of the Secretariat's activism; constructivism analyses instances of both. I argue that the UN Secretariat can be both enthusiastic and cautious about new tasks depending on the circumstances and the issue area. For example, UN officials have been the driving force behind the development of public information campaigns by peacekeeping missions aimed at the local population. During the cold war, it was not regarded as necessary for UN missions to communicate with the public in the area of operation: their interlocutors were parties to the conflict and the diplomatic community. With the deployment of the first multidimensional missions in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, UN staff realized the need to explain the organization's role to the local population and provide information about UN-supported elections. In promoting this innovation, they played the role of policy entrepreneurs. The institutionalization of this innovation, however, was not an automatic process and required continuous advocacy by UN information staff.

This study introduces the TUBAKOV dataset, which offers extensive data on 57 peacekeeping operations (PKOs) that Turkey has contributed to between the years 1988–2015. TUBAKOV improves existing data in several ways. First, it draws data from governmental resources that have not been previously used. Second, Turkey's contributions for each PKO are presented both at the levels of PKO and PKO-contribution year format. The website of the dataset also allows access to qualitative data such as primary text sources, hence facilitating qualitative and multi-method research on peacekeeping. Preliminary analyses indicate that the frequency, nature and the geographic focus of Turkey's contributions to peacekeeping operations demonstrate a significant shift with the new millennium. Preliminary findings offer interesting insights to the changing characteristics of Turkey's PKO involvements relating to the content, geography and timing of these contributions over the time period covered by this dataset.

A stated aim in the EU Global Strategy is for the EU to work with partners in addressing crises across the world. This article analyses such potential in the area of crisis response and peacebuilding, with an emphasis on the EU's interaction with the UN and OSCE. It starts off comparatively by examining where the EU, UN and OSCE add value in crisis response and peacebuilding and reach complementarities. It shows that deployments differ across geographical locations and that the mandates of these organizations vary considerably with the EU focusing on police capacity building, the OSCE on the judiciary and the UN providing monitoring functions. In the second half, the article uses insights from cooperation between these organizations on the ground in Kosovo, Mali and Armenia to determine levels of interaction. Despite relatively few conflicts between these organizations, we find that they continue to work in parallel with each organization focusing on their narrow mandate and competences. ; A stated aim in the EU Global Strategy is for the EU to work with partners in addressing crises across the world. This article analyses such potential in the area of crisis response and peacebuilding, with an emphasis on the EU's interaction with the UN and OSCE. It starts off comparatively by examining where the EU, UN and OSCE add value in crisis response and peacebuilding and reach complementarities. It shows that deployments differ across geographical locations and that the mandates of these organizations vary considerably with the EU focusing on police capacity building, the OSCE on the judiciary and the UN providing monitoring functions. In the second half, the article uses insights from cooperation between these organizations on the ground in Kosovo, Mali and Armenia to determine levels of interaction. Despite relatively few conflicts between these organizations, we find that they continue to work in parallel with each organization focusing on their narrow mandate and competences.

With the failure of liberal peace strategies in the Global South, resilience has recently become the risk management strategy par excellence in peacebuilding. Since it is not possible to predict when the next crisis will take place, peacebuilders must invest in bottom-up adaptive capacities to cope with external shocks. This article moves away from governmentality accounts of resilience which are overtly deterministic and depoliticizing. Instead, it posits that the uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity associated with resilience mean that we should expect opportunities for contestation and institutional agency. This argument will be illustrated by drawing upon the European Union's adoption of the resilience approach in its peacebuilding and security policies. The article argues that while uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity constitute the ontological conditions that underpin the rise of resilience in peacebuilding, they are also likely to lead to its potential demise.

Since the early 2000s, the "local turn" has thoroughly transformed the field of peacebuilding. The EU policy discourse on peacebuilding has also aligned with this trend, with an increasing number of EU policy statements insisting on the importance of "the local". However, most studies on EU peacebuilding still adopt a top-down approach and focus on institutions, capabilities and decision-making at the EU level. This special issue contributes to the literature by focusing on bottom-up and local dynamics of EU peacebuilding. After outlining the rationale and the scope of the special issue, this article discusses the local turn in international peacebuilding and identifies several interrelated concepts relevant to theorizing the role of the local, specifically those of effectiveness, ownership, and resistance. In the conclusion, we summarize the key contributions of this special issue and suggest some avenues for further research.

Existing studies of European Union Common Security and Defence Policy (EU CSDP) missions often rely on a conceptualisation of Women, Peace and Security (WPS) implementation as a technical, linear and deterministic process. While this scholarship is part of a concerted effort to develop an accountability mechanism and push for organisational change, this paper contends that we also need a more grounded and contextual approach to capture the complex, ambivalent and often tortuous translation of WPS into CSDP relatively new security practices. This suggests that a deeper interrogation of what meaning(s) mainstreaming gender assumes in the context of EU CSDP missions and how this conceptualisation informs the practice of peacekeeping is required. Drawing on interviews with EU peacekeeping personnel, we outline an ambivalent account of how different CSDP actors interpret WPS and gender mainstreaming and compose it in use, with different effects.

Of the countries considering national-level policies for incentivizing reductions in forest-based greenhouse gas emissions (REDD+), some 25 are experiencing (or are emerging from) armed-conflicts. It has been hypothesized that the outcomes of the interactions between carbon-storage and peacebuilding efforts could result in either improved or worsened forest conservation and likewise increased or decreased conflict. Hence, for this study we explore potential interactions between forest carbon-storage and peacebuilding efforts, with Colombia as a case study. Spatial associations between biomass carbon and three conflict-related variables suggest that such interactions may exist. Nonetheless, while priority areas for carbon-focused conservation are presumably those at highest risks of deforestation, our research indicates that forests with lower risk of deforestation are typically those affected by armed-conflict. Our findings moreover highlight three possible roles played by Colombian forested municipalities in armed groups' military strategies: venues for battle, hideouts, and sources of natural resources to finance war.

Complicity by UN military peacekeepers in sexual abuse and sexual exploitation ('SEA') has been in the lime light in academic, practice and policy circles for many years now. Recent scandals involving sexual violence and abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic and failures to respond are proving the catalyst for major reforms being discussed and implemented currently at UN level. There are numerous legal complexities, difficulties and flaws with the legal framework, policies and systems presently in place. Less considered are the parallel regulatory frameworks operative, or not operative, in the context of peacekeeping done beyond the remit of the United Nations or by those not deployed under its command and control. The fact remains that SEA is also prevalent across these peace operations but very little focus has been placed on these by academics or practitioners alike. Increasingly the UN is likely to rely on regional bodies in conducting peace operations falling outside its SEA regulatory framework. This may leave local populations vulnerable to unregulated or poorly regulated acts of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers. This paper seeks to address a gap in the literature in examining this regulatory space, focusing on the African Union's ('AU's') policy and regulatory frameworks governing its personnel deployed to peace operation environments in so far as they appear to exist. In doing so, it will reflect on the relationship this has to the UN's Human Rights Due Diligence Policy on United Nations Support to Non-United Nations Security Forces, and the increasing reliance on AU regional peace operations, and re-hatting of forces.

Focusing on the post-accord generation in Northern Ireland, this study aimed to examine the role of intergroup contact in promoting support for peacebuilding and youth civic engagement. The sample comprised 466 youth (aged 14-15; 51% Catholic, 49% Protestant) who were born after the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and therefore represent a 'post-accord' generation. Recruited through their schools, youth completed scales on intergroup contact (quality and quantity), support for peacebuilding, and civic engagement. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling and bootstrapped mediation in MPlus. Results found that support for peacebuilding partially mediated the association between higher quality and higher quantity contact and greater civic engagement (volunteering and political participation). Findings demonstrate that youth who are living with the legacy of protracted intergroup conflict can support peacebuilding and engage in constructive behaviours such as civic engagement. By recognising the peacebuilding potential of youth, especially in a post-accord generation, the findings may inform how to promote youth civic engagement and social reconstruction after conflict.