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Protecting the Global Civilian from Violence: UN discourses and practices in fragile states
Brief about:
Book (2021)
Written by:
My book looked into track records of 35 UN peacekeeping operations and unilateral operations, and assessed problems of violence.
I was very dissatisfied by the sparse evidence that actually existed going against the normal narrative about how UN interventions impact conflict and levels of violence.
The purpose of this research was to give a systematic review of how the UN peacekeeping and how big powers should avoid unilateral interventions and work with the UN instead, to reduce violence in places like Syria, or Yemen.
Key findings
- The United Nations seemed to be very successful compared with unilateral operations.What it means
In almost all their operations, they do manage to reduce violence drastically. So their peacekeeping is actually surprisingly successful, despite the fact that they receive a lot of critique.
- When the United States, United Kingdom, France, but also Russia, try to protect people outside their own territories, and when they use robust military force, they almost every time escalate a conflict and end up killing the people they intended to protect.What it means
On average, the number of fatalities increases 720% during the first year of a unilateral operation.
- I realised that, first of all, this understanding that only by robust force, you can do something good, is completely wrong.What it means
The more countries (and even the UN) are focused on enforcing its will upon others, the less successful it is in saving of lives.
- Very often the real problems in conflict states are economic.What it means
So when people are fighting one another, the root cause could actually be poverty. And when the UN focuses more on economic development, in its peacekeeping operations, that's when they succeed more, whereas when they don't, then their levels of success is much less.
Proposed action
- If there's a case of atrocious violence we should not decide to take unilateral action outside of the UN and we should not overstep the UN’s mandate
Countries should stop taking matters into their own hands. In the example of Libya and Gaddafi slaughtering his own people, had there been a UN mandate, it would have been easier to legitimise their action as Libya was a member of the UN and had accepted the UN rules, whereas Libya had never accepted the rules of NATO. As a result, it was easy for Gaddafi to mobilise his own troops against NATO troops, but also against those people that NATO aimed to protect. Instead, the NATO operation succeeded in destroying the state and increasing violence by several factors.
- There are powerful interests who want to emphasise the power of our own weapons, the power of our own military operations and it does not matter how poorly they manage to reduce violence in humanitarian interventions
But the power of the truth can help counter their justification, and if it is better known that the number of fatalities increased 720% during the first year of a unilateral operation, then that could help to build opposition. Because if they are justified with the intention to protect people from violence, then we can say “well according to the evidence, this approach will increase violence”
Helpful resources
- DatabaseA Dataset on the Discourse, Approach and Outcomes of UN Peacekeeping, 1993–2019This is the quantified data on UN Security Council resolutions. It is based on coding of the resolutions by using NVivo program and using grammatical coding rules for the analysis of agency, method and referent object of protection in UN operations. This data was created in the process of research of this project.Visit resource ↗
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Protecting the Global Civilian from Violence: UN discourses and practices in fragile states
Cite this brief: Kivimäki, Timo. 'Protecting the Global Civilian from Violence: UN discourses and practices in fragile states'. Acume. https://www.acume.org/r/protecting-the-global-civilian-from-violence-un-discourses-and-practices-in-fragile-states/
Brief created by: Professor Timo Kivimäki | Year brief made: 2022
Original research:
- Kivimäki, T., Protecting the Global Civilian from Violence: UN discourses and practices in fragile states London: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429285639. – https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429285639/protecting-global-civilian-violence-timo-kivim%C3%A4ki
Research brief:
My book looked into track records of 35 UN peacekeeping operations and unilateral operations, and assessed problems of violence.
I was very dissatisfied by the sparse evidence that actually existed going against the normal narrative about how UN interventions impact conflict and levels of violence.
The purpose of this research was to give a systematic review of how the UN peacekeeping and how big powers should avoid unilateral interventions and work with the UN instead, to reduce violence in places like Syria, or Yemen.
Findings:
The United Nations seemed to be very successful compared with unilateral operations.
In almost all their operations, they do manage to reduce violence drastically. So their peacekeeping is actually surprisingly successful, despite the fact that they receive a lot of critique.
When the United States, United Kingdom, France, but also Russia, try to protect people outside their own territories, and when they use robust military force, they almost every time escalate a conflict and end up killing the people they intended to protect.
On average, the number of fatalities increases 720% during the first year of a unilateral operation.
I realised that, first of all, this understanding that only by robust force, you can do something good, is completely wrong.
The more countries (and even the UN) are focused on enforcing its will upon others, the less successful it is in saving of lives.
Very often the real problems in conflict states are economic.
So when people are fighting one another, the root cause could actually be poverty. And when the UN focuses more on economic development, in its peacekeeping operations, that’s when they succeed more, whereas when they don’t, then their levels of success is much less.
Advice:
If there’s a case of atrocious violence we should not decide to take unilateral action outside of the UN and we should not overstep the UN’s mandate
- Countries should stop taking matters into their own hands. In the example of Libya and Gaddafi slaughtering his own people, had there been a UN mandate, it would have been easier to legitimise their action as Libya was a member of the UN and had accepted the UN rules, whereas Libya had never accepted the rules of NATO. As a result, it was easy for Gaddafi to mobilise his own troops against NATO troops, but also against those people that NATO aimed to protect. Instead, the NATO operation succeeded in destroying the state and increasing violence by several factors.
There are powerful interests who want to emphasise the power of our own weapons, the power of our own military operations and it does not matter how poorly they manage to reduce violence in humanitarian interventions
- But the power of the truth can help counter their justification, and if it is better known that the number of fatalities increased 720% during the first year of a unilateral operation, then that could help to build opposition. Because if they are justified with the intention to protect people from violence, then we can say “well according to the evidence, this approach will increase violence”