Description
Recent literature on inter-organisational relations in peacekeeping has begun to gradually shift focus from the relationship between the UN and regional organisations, as governed under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, onto the relations and partnerships between regional organisations as they have developed in the field of peacekeeping. This paper examines the conditions that enable regional organisations to cooperate effectively with one another in planning and implementing peacekeeping operations, taking the AU-EU cooperation on peacekeeping as a case study, and contrasting it with the absence of such cooperation in the context of regional conflicts in the post-Soviet region. Drawing upon English School theory that explains international cooperation in terms of institutions of international society, and reconceptualising peacekeeping as a contested ‘primary institution’ in contemporary international society, the paper argues that an effective inter-regional organisational cooperation in peacekeeping requires the existence of a shared understanding regarding (1) the means employed, (2) the goals pursued, and (3) the vision of a regional security culture that the regional organisations involved are seeking to promote and entrench in the region in question.
