Description
The UN field-based peacekeeping bureaucracy – civilian officials working in UN peacekeeping missions – is the world’s third-largest international civil service surpassed only by the European Commission and the World Bank Group. Civilian specialists in political affairs, human rights, gender, child protection, electoral support, security sector reform, strategic communications, and information analysis units make a significant contribution to the implementation of multidimensional peacekeeping mandates. However, the governance of UN peacekeeping is disjoined: the UN Security Council authorises peacekeeping missions and defines their tasks, the UN General Assembly apportions funding, and the UN Secretariat manages missions without a formal mechanism for influencing their mandates or budgets. Civilian UN officials at headquarters and in the field are often held responsible for failures to implement ambitious mandates, even if the tasks are numerous and the resources are limited. Does the UN General Assembly approve sufficient civilian posts in UN peacekeeping operations for the implementation of Security Council mandates? We answer this question on the basis of two novel datasets: the Peacekeeping Mandates (PEMA) Dataset, which codes Security Council’s instructions to peacekeeping missions, and the UNCiPPO (UN Civilian Posts in Peacekeeping Operations) Dataset, which maps budgeted civilian posts in peacekeeping missions by type, rank, and unit.
