Description
Individuals matter. This panel investigates why and how individuals in peace operations matter. It highlights how personal agency and characteristics, professional judgment, and everyday practices shape the functioning and legitimacy of multilateral interventions. Moving beyond institutional and mandate-centered analyses, it explores—through a micro lens—how uniformed peacekeepers and civilian staff interpret and enact the complex normative, political, and operational demands of contemporary missions. The panel advances the study of peace operations by mobilizing diverse theoretical perspectives, including practice theory, organizational theory, and public administration. The contributions reveal how individuals both sustain and subtly transform established practices. In doing so, the panel situates peace operations within broader debates on agency, practice, and legitimacy in international relations. It argues that understanding the human dimension of peace operations is crucial to grasping how global security governance is enacted and adapted in contexts of persistent uncertainty and contestation.
