Description
How do United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations withstand moments of crisis? UN missions face challenges both at headquarters in New York, where mandates are negotiated, and in the field, where they operate. They experience a triple "legitimacy crisis": at the intergovernmental level (Security Council deadlocks and U.S.-led budget pressures under the Trump administration), at the local level (host governments retracting consent and rising anti-UN sentiment among populations), and within the bureaucracy (notably a persistent liquidity crisis).
Yet despite these tensions, a minimal but durable consensus around peacekeeping persists. This resilience is visible in continued reform efforts, routinised practices (such as annual mandate renewals and Peacekeeping Committee sessions), and the support of key stakeholders, including troop-contributing countries, Security Council penholders, and senior officials in the Department of Peace Operations.
This paper explains the "resilient legitimacy" of peacekeeping by showing how the UN Secretariat sustains PKOs through institutional practices that operate beyond the most contested political arenas. Peacekeeping is legitimated not only through formal political and normative processes, but also through technical, managerial, and symbolic practices that deflect challenges and reinforce continuity. Drawing on a socio-historical study of UN officials, this article argues that missions persist not merely as products of geopolitical bargaining, but thanks to discreet, everyday practices that make them more resistant to crises.
