Katharina P Coleman
Biographic Data
| ID | 3782476 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katharina P Coleman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katharina P |
| FAMILY NAME | Coleman |
| SIGNATURE | COLEMAN K P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4155-5128 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Gender in International Bureaucracies: Evidence from UN Field Missions
Contemporary international organizations, including the UN, employ tens of thousands of staff outside of their headquarters in field offices around the world. Despite attempts to promote gender equity, significant differences persist in male and female officials’ experiences of working in UN field offices and missions. Drawing on a series of internal surveys of UN field staff, we demonstrate that, relative to men, women report having worse relati…
Introducing the Uncippo (UN Civilian Posts in Peacekeeping Operations) Dataset
This research note presents a dataset on budgeted civilian personnel posts in UN peacekeeping operations by mission, unit, rank, and staff category in the 1991–2020 period: the UNCIPPO (UN Civilian Posts in Peacekeeping Operations) Dataset. Civilian staff in UN peacekeeping operations include specialists in political affairs, human rights, gender, child protection, electoral support, security sector reform, strategic communications, and informati…
Local Knowledges in International Peacebuilding: Acquisition, Filtering, and Systematic Bias
There is widespread consensus among peacebuilding practitioners and scholars on the importance of integrating local knowledge into the design, planning, and implementation of international peace interventions. However, the concept of local knowledge remains undertheorized, and the dynamics of local knowledge integration in international activities have not yet been fully explored. This paper reconceptualizes “local knowledge” in peacebuilding as …
National Staff and the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Facilitative and Direct Agency
Token Forces: How Tiny Troop Deployments Became Ubiquitous in UN Peacekeeping
Token forces – tiny national troop contributions in much larger coalitions – have become ubiquitous in UN peacekeeping. This Element examines how and why this contribution type has become the most common form of participation in UN peace operations despite its limited relevance for missions' operational success. It conceptualizes token forces as a path-dependent unintended consequence of the norm of multilateralism in international uses of milita…
African peacekeeping
Peace operations are what states make of them: Why future evolution is more likely than extinction
Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from what constructivists in International Relations theory call collective intentionality and the malleable constitutive rules that define and structure such missions. Despite a range of current constraints, challenges, and crises, peace operations are unlikely to become extinct unless a critical mass of states consistently wit…
How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order
UN peacekeeping became a flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership. Western states' diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, but significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping. This article highlights African actors an…
Slow Progress on UN Rapid Deployment: The Pitfalls of Policy Paradigms in International Organizations
When reform negotiations in international organizations (IOs) produce limited substantive progress, the diagnosis is typically a lack of political will. We identify a different dynamic: in protracted negotiations, international policy paradigms can emerge that enshrine a politically realistic but incomplete issue definition and thereby focus the debate on a subset of policy instruments that do not fully address the underlying problem. We draw on …
United Nations Peacekeeping Decisions: Three Hierarchies, Upward Mobility and Institutionalised Inequality among Member States
This article explores the multiple and evolving hierarchies shaping UN decisions on peacekeeping operations. Three hierarchies—based on Security Council membership, financial assessments, and troop contributions—currently distribute influence over these decisions among UN member states. These hierarchies differ in their relationship to global stratification patterns, and in the states they empower. Their gradual “layering” has thus expanded the p…
Downsizing in UN Peacekeeping: The Impact on Civilian Peacekeepers and the Missions Employing Them
After a decade of remarkable growth in the early 2000s, UN peacekeeping has entered a period of sharp contraction. This trend has been especially severe for civilian peacekeepers, who play vital though often neglected roles in UN operations: the number of civilian peacekeeper positions has shrunk by 37% since 2010. This article draws on 164 research interviews and the vast Business literature on downsizing to explore the effects of this contracti…
Peacekeeping for profit? The scope and limits of 'mercenary' UN peacekeeping
Developing states furnish the vast majority of UN peacekeeping troops, a fact academics and policymakers often attribute (at least partly) to developing states' supposed ability to derive a profit from UN peacekeeping reimbursements. In this article, we argue that this 'peacekeeping for profit' narrative has been vastly overstated. The conditions for significantly profiting from UN peacekeeping are in fact highly restrictive, even for developing …
The Legitimacy Audience Shapes the Coalition: Lessons from Afghanistan, 2001
Legitimacy considerations profoundly affect coalition-building strategies for contemporary military interventions. However, the nature of this impact depends on which of three distinct legitimacy audiences intervening governments are most concerned about: their domestic publics, the international community or the host-country population. Intervening actors typically value all three audiences, but may be more confident of some audiences’ approval …
Extending UN Peacekeeping Financing Beyond UN Peacekeeping Operations? The Prospects and Challenges of Reform
Adequate financing is fundamental to the success of any peace operation. In June 2015, the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations advanced three proposals that would extend UN peacekeeping financing beyond its current boundaries to produce a more comprehensive system of funding peace operations. It advocated giving UN special political missions access to backstopping and transitional funding mechanisms created for peacekeeping operation…
Locating norm diplomacy: Venue change in international norm negotiations
Venue — the institutional setting in which actors interact — is a critical but neglected factor in international norm creation. This article brings together constructivist and rationalist insights to explain both why and how venue affects norm creation and how norm leaders choose among different venues. First, it highlights the importance of negotiation alongside persuasion in norm emergence — the first stage of Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) nor…
Innovations in 'African solutions to African problems: The evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa
Three critical trends in the evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa have undermined the usefulness of the common conceptual dichotomy between regional peacekeeping and UN/global peacekeeping. First, sub-Saharan African states have distanced themselves from long-term autonomous regional peacekeeping, and currently favour explicitly interim missions that are a prelude rather than an alternative to UN peacekeeping. Second, …
International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy
What distinguishes a peace enforcement operation from an invasion? This question has been asked with particular vehemence since the US intervention in Iraq, but it faces all military operations seeking to impose peace in countries torn by civil war. This book highlights the critical role of international organisations (IOs) as gatekeepers to international legitimacy for modern peace enforcement operations. The author analyses five operations laun…
International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy
Dilemmas of Reconciliation: Cases and Concepts
Edited by Carol A. L. Prager and Trudy GovierWaterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003, vi, 360pp, $34.95 paper (ISBN 0-88920-415-2)Mass human rights abuses claimed more lives in the 20th century than warfare. Between 1900 and 1987, 170 million people perished at the hands of their own governments. In comparison, 34.4 million people died in battle over the same period. In the post-Cold War era, genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the f…
Locating norm diplomacy: Venue change in international norm negotiations
Venue — the institutional setting in which actors interact — is a critical but neglected factor in international norm creation. This article brings together constructivist and rationalist insights to explain both why and how venue affects norm creation and how norm leaders choose among different venues. First, it highlights the importance of negotiation alongside persuasion in norm emergence — the first stage of Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) nor…
Peace operations are what states make of them: Why future evolution is more likely than extinction
Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from what constructivists in International Relations theory call collective intentionality and the malleable constitutive rules that define and structure such missions. Despite a range of current constraints, challenges, and crises, peace operations are unlikely to become extinct unless a critical mass of states consistently wit…
Peacekeeping for profit? The scope and limits of 'mercenary' UN peacekeeping
Developing states furnish the vast majority of UN peacekeeping troops, a fact academics and policymakers often attribute (at least partly) to developing states' supposed ability to derive a profit from UN peacekeeping reimbursements. In this article, we argue that this 'peacekeeping for profit' narrative has been vastly overstated. The conditions for significantly profiting from UN peacekeeping are in fact highly restrictive, even for developing …
How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order
UN peacekeeping became a flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership. Western states' diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, but significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping. This article highlights African actors an…
Downsizing in UN Peacekeeping: The Impact on Civilian Peacekeepers and the Missions Employing Them
After a decade of remarkable growth in the early 2000s, UN peacekeeping has entered a period of sharp contraction. This trend has been especially severe for civilian peacekeepers, who play vital though often neglected roles in UN operations: the number of civilian peacekeeper positions has shrunk by 37% since 2010. This article draws on 164 research interviews and the vast Business literature on downsizing to explore the effects of this contracti…
Dilemmas of Reconciliation: Cases and Concepts
Edited by Carol A. L. Prager and Trudy GovierWaterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003, vi, 360pp, $34.95 paper (ISBN 0-88920-415-2)Mass human rights abuses claimed more lives in the 20th century than warfare. Between 1900 and 1987, 170 million people perished at the hands of their own governments. In comparison, 34.4 million people died in battle over the same period. In the post-Cold War era, genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the f…
United Nations Peacekeeping Decisions: Three Hierarchies, Upward Mobility and Institutionalised Inequality among Member States
This article explores the multiple and evolving hierarchies shaping UN decisions on peacekeeping operations. Three hierarchies—based on Security Council membership, financial assessments, and troop contributions—currently distribute influence over these decisions among UN member states. These hierarchies differ in their relationship to global stratification patterns, and in the states they empower. Their gradual “layering” has thus expanded the p…
The Legitimacy Audience Shapes the Coalition: Lessons from Afghanistan, 2001
Legitimacy considerations profoundly affect coalition-building strategies for contemporary military interventions. However, the nature of this impact depends on which of three distinct legitimacy audiences intervening governments are most concerned about: their domestic publics, the international community or the host-country population. Intervening actors typically value all three audiences, but may be more confident of some audiences’ approval …
Slow Progress on UN Rapid Deployment: The Pitfalls of Policy Paradigms in International Organizations
When reform negotiations in international organizations (IOs) produce limited substantive progress, the diagnosis is typically a lack of political will. We identify a different dynamic: in protracted negotiations, international policy paradigms can emerge that enshrine a politically realistic but incomplete issue definition and thereby focus the debate on a subset of policy instruments that do not fully address the underlying problem. We draw on …
Innovations in 'African solutions to African problems: The evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa
Three critical trends in the evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa have undermined the usefulness of the common conceptual dichotomy between regional peacekeeping and UN/global peacekeeping. First, sub-Saharan African states have distanced themselves from long-term autonomous regional peacekeeping, and currently favour explicitly interim missions that are a prelude rather than an alternative to UN peacekeeping. Second, …
Local Knowledges in International Peacebuilding: Acquisition, Filtering, and Systematic Bias
There is widespread consensus among peacebuilding practitioners and scholars on the importance of integrating local knowledge into the design, planning, and implementation of international peace interventions. However, the concept of local knowledge remains undertheorized, and the dynamics of local knowledge integration in international activities have not yet been fully explored. This paper reconceptualizes “local knowledge” in peacebuilding as …
Extending UN Peacekeeping Financing Beyond UN Peacekeeping Operations? The Prospects and Challenges of Reform
Adequate financing is fundamental to the success of any peace operation. In June 2015, the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations advanced three proposals that would extend UN peacekeeping financing beyond its current boundaries to produce a more comprehensive system of funding peace operations. It advocated giving UN special political missions access to backstopping and transitional funding mechanisms created for peacekeeping operation…
National Staff and the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Facilitative and Direct Agency
Dilemmas of Reconciliation: Cases and Concepts
Edited by Carol A. L. Prager and Trudy GovierWaterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003, vi, 360pp, $34.95 paper (ISBN 0-88920-415-2)Mass human rights abuses claimed more lives in the 20th century than warfare. Between 1900 and 1987, 170 million people perished at the hands of their own governments. In comparison, 34.4 million people died in battle over the same period. In the post-Cold War era, genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the f…
International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy
What distinguishes a peace enforcement operation from an invasion? This question has been asked with particular vehemence since the US intervention in Iraq, but it faces all military operations seeking to impose peace in countries torn by civil war. This book highlights the critical role of international organisations (IOs) as gatekeepers to international legitimacy for modern peace enforcement operations. The author analyses five operations laun…
International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy
Innovations in 'African solutions to African problems: The evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa
Three critical trends in the evolving practice of regional peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa have undermined the usefulness of the common conceptual dichotomy between regional peacekeeping and UN/global peacekeeping. First, sub-Saharan African states have distanced themselves from long-term autonomous regional peacekeeping, and currently favour explicitly interim missions that are a prelude rather than an alternative to UN peacekeeping. Second, …
Locating norm diplomacy: Venue change in international norm negotiations
Venue — the institutional setting in which actors interact — is a critical but neglected factor in international norm creation. This article brings together constructivist and rationalist insights to explain both why and how venue affects norm creation and how norm leaders choose among different venues. First, it highlights the importance of negotiation alongside persuasion in norm emergence — the first stage of Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) nor…
The Legitimacy Audience Shapes the Coalition: Lessons from Afghanistan, 2001
Legitimacy considerations profoundly affect coalition-building strategies for contemporary military interventions. However, the nature of this impact depends on which of three distinct legitimacy audiences intervening governments are most concerned about: their domestic publics, the international community or the host-country population. Intervening actors typically value all three audiences, but may be more confident of some audiences’ approval …
Extending UN Peacekeeping Financing Beyond UN Peacekeeping Operations? The Prospects and Challenges of Reform
Adequate financing is fundamental to the success of any peace operation. In June 2015, the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations advanced three proposals that would extend UN peacekeeping financing beyond its current boundaries to produce a more comprehensive system of funding peace operations. It advocated giving UN special political missions access to backstopping and transitional funding mechanisms created for peacekeeping operation…
Peacekeeping for profit? The scope and limits of 'mercenary' UN peacekeeping
Developing states furnish the vast majority of UN peacekeeping troops, a fact academics and policymakers often attribute (at least partly) to developing states' supposed ability to derive a profit from UN peacekeeping reimbursements. In this article, we argue that this 'peacekeeping for profit' narrative has been vastly overstated. The conditions for significantly profiting from UN peacekeeping are in fact highly restrictive, even for developing …
Slow Progress on UN Rapid Deployment: The Pitfalls of Policy Paradigms in International Organizations
When reform negotiations in international organizations (IOs) produce limited substantive progress, the diagnosis is typically a lack of political will. We identify a different dynamic: in protracted negotiations, international policy paradigms can emerge that enshrine a politically realistic but incomplete issue definition and thereby focus the debate on a subset of policy instruments that do not fully address the underlying problem. We draw on …
United Nations Peacekeeping Decisions: Three Hierarchies, Upward Mobility and Institutionalised Inequality among Member States
This article explores the multiple and evolving hierarchies shaping UN decisions on peacekeeping operations. Three hierarchies—based on Security Council membership, financial assessments, and troop contributions—currently distribute influence over these decisions among UN member states. These hierarchies differ in their relationship to global stratification patterns, and in the states they empower. Their gradual “layering” has thus expanded the p…
Downsizing in UN Peacekeeping: The Impact on Civilian Peacekeepers and the Missions Employing Them
After a decade of remarkable growth in the early 2000s, UN peacekeeping has entered a period of sharp contraction. This trend has been especially severe for civilian peacekeepers, who play vital though often neglected roles in UN operations: the number of civilian peacekeeper positions has shrunk by 37% since 2010. This article draws on 164 research interviews and the vast Business literature on downsizing to explore the effects of this contracti…
Peace operations are what states make of them: Why future evolution is more likely than extinction
Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from what constructivists in International Relations theory call collective intentionality and the malleable constitutive rules that define and structure such missions. Despite a range of current constraints, challenges, and crises, peace operations are unlikely to become extinct unless a critical mass of states consistently wit…
How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order
UN peacekeeping became a flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership. Western states' diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, but significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping. This article highlights African actors an…
Token Forces: How Tiny Troop Deployments Became Ubiquitous in UN Peacekeeping
Token forces – tiny national troop contributions in much larger coalitions – have become ubiquitous in UN peacekeeping. This Element examines how and why this contribution type has become the most common form of participation in UN peace operations despite its limited relevance for missions' operational success. It conceptualizes token forces as a path-dependent unintended consequence of the norm of multilateralism in international uses of milita…
African peacekeeping
Local Knowledges in International Peacebuilding: Acquisition, Filtering, and Systematic Bias
There is widespread consensus among peacebuilding practitioners and scholars on the importance of integrating local knowledge into the design, planning, and implementation of international peace interventions. However, the concept of local knowledge remains undertheorized, and the dynamics of local knowledge integration in international activities have not yet been fully explored. This paper reconceptualizes “local knowledge” in peacebuilding as …
National Staff and the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Facilitative and Direct Agency
Gender in International Bureaucracies: Evidence from UN Field Missions
Contemporary international organizations, including the UN, employ tens of thousands of staff outside of their headquarters in field offices around the world. Despite attempts to promote gender equity, significant differences persist in male and female officials’ experiences of working in UN field offices and missions. Drawing on a series of internal surveys of UN field staff, we demonstrate that, relative to men, women report having worse relati…
Introducing the Uncippo (UN Civilian Posts in Peacekeeping Operations) Dataset
This research note presents a dataset on budgeted civilian personnel posts in UN peacekeeping operations by mission, unit, rank, and staff category in the 1991–2020 period: the UNCIPPO (UN Civilian Posts in Peacekeeping Operations) Dataset. Civilian staff in UN peacekeeping operations include specialists in political affairs, human rights, gender, child protection, electoral support, security sector reform, strategic communications, and informati…
Political science (18 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (15 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (12 works) · Peacekeeping (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · International Development and Aid (8 works) · Law (7 works)