Description
As the global political landscape is in transformation, so are the roles, mandates and practices of the UN. Recently, the apparent ‘robust turn’ in United Nations peacekeeping has been a source of controversy. Some observers consider the rise of robust mandates necessary for maintaining the ‘relevance’ of the UN, others emphasise the negative unintended consequences of the deepening entanglement of peacekeeping with stabilization and counterterrorism. The frictions this transformation produces within the UN itself have also received some attention. Yet, focus remains primarily on the formal institutional architecture and to some extent on member state divergences concerning the question of ‘robust use of force’. This paper focusses on the comparatively understudied issue of how this transformation of peacekeeping is negotiated by different UN and non-UN peacekeeping actors on the ground. How do their everyday practices - and related networks and resources - shape doctrine? We understand these practices as contributing to changing principles and practices that feed into reports and evaluations - and ultimately have policy outcomes. The paper will zoom in on these contestations in Mali and Somalia where mandate delivery, in particular the priority mandate of Protection of Civilians, has to be defended, redefined or evaded in these everyday negotiations of the robust turn. This outlook helps convey overlooked agency of peacekeepers at a time when the very notion of peacekeeping echoes distressingly little with multi-actor mission realities.
