Evaluating UN peacekeeping deployment problems

The case of the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967

Bibliographic Data

ID2174358
AuthorsMartin Ottovay Jorgensen (0000-0002-2950-4486, City Literary Institute, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume27
Issue6
Pages1-23
Publication date2025-01-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInterventions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369801x.2024.2440152
OpenAlexW4406601420
LanguageEN
References cited61

Since the end of the Cold War, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations have expanded significantly not just in the number of missions, but also in size and mandate. Alongside, both scholarly and media attention has focused on the increasingly visible systemic problems linked to UN operations, which range from the internationalization of political decision-making, accountability issues, and racism towards local communities to violence committed by UN staff, sexual exploitation and abuse of members of the local communities, and economic inequalities created by the international presence. Although such critical perspectives are prevalent in the broader research landscape of postcolonial studies, scholars have only just started to explore these problems within UN “mission areas” during decolonization. This essay addresses this gap in two ways. First, it explores the geopolitical space of the first UN peacekeeping operation in the Middle East between 1956 and 1967. Second, it focuses on the everyday spaces in which the Palestinian communities in the “mission area” of the Gaza Strip reacted to the problems of food security, labour, and insecurity engendered by the presence of UN peacekeepers. Within the framework of this special issue on foreign interventions and crisis management, the aim is to reflect more broadly on the long-term and short-term impact of UN operations, both “locally” and “internationally”, by connecting historical research with social sciences approaches. Using the UN operation in the Gaza Strip as its lens, the essay argues that the current systemic problems of UN interventions have their roots in the legacies of Western imperial policies and mindsets. It consequently invites both scholars and practitioners to reflect on the imperial roots and imprints of postcolonial international conflict management as an epistemic basis both for the way UN peacekeeping operations are carried out and the way we have come to assess their impact and “success”

Business · Peacekeeping · Political science · Software deployment · Computer Science · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration