The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace?

Peace operations are the UN's flagship activity. Over the past decade, UN blue helmets have been dispatched to ever more challenging environments from the Congo to Timor to perform an expanding set of tasks. From protecting civilians in the midst of violent conflict to rebuilding state institutions after war, a new range of tasks has transformed the business of the blue helmets into an inherently knowledge-based venture. But all too often, the UN blue helmets, policemen, and other civilian officials have been "flying blind" in their efforts to stabilize countries ravaged by war. The UN realized the need to put knowledge, guidance and doctrine, and reflection on failures and successes at the center of the institution.

Building on an innovative multi-disciplinary framework, The New World of UN Peace Operations provides a first comprehensive account of learning in peacekeeping. Covering the crucial past decade of expansion in peace operations, it zooms into a dozen cases of attempted learning across four crucial domains: police assistance, judicial reform, reintegration of former combatants, and mission integration. Throughout the different cases, the book analyzes the role of key variables as enablers and stumbling blocks for learning: bureaucratic politics, the learning infrastructure, leadership as well as power and interests of member states. Building on five years of research and access to key documents and decision-makers, it presents a vivid portrait of an international bureaucracy struggling to turn itself into a learning organization. Aimed at policy-makers, diplomats, and a wide academic audience (including those working in international relations, peace research, political science, public administration, and organizational sociology), The New World of UN Peace Operations is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the evolution of modern peace operations.

Thorsten Benner is Co-Founder and Associate Director of the Global Public Policy Institute. His areas of expertise include international organizations (focusing on the United Nations), global security governance, EU foreign policy and EU-US relations in an emerging multipolar world as well as global energy and the public-private interface in global governance. Prior to co-founding the Global Public Policy Institute in 2003, he worked with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Berlin; the UN Development Program (UNDP), New York; and the Global Public Policy Project, Washington D.C. His commentary has appeared in DIE ZEIT, the International Herald Tribune, the LA Times, Handelsblatt, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, among others. He teaches in the Executive Master of Public Management (EMPM) and Master of Public Policy (MPP) programs at the Hertie School of Governance.

Stephan Mergenthaler is Fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute and Project Manager with the World Economic Forum. His research interests comprise global security governance, EU foreign policy and EU-China relations. Prior to joining GPPi in 2007, Mergenthaler worked with the International Institute for Strategies Studies, London. He also gained experience with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi, the German and French Ministries for Foreign Affairs in Berlin and Paris, and the German Mission to the UN, New York. His commentary has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, DIE ZEIT online, Spiegel online and EU Observer, among others. He holds an MA and MSc from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.

Philipp Rotmann is Fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin, and has served as a Senior Strategy Analyst with the Office of the Senior Civilian Representative at ISAF Regional Command North in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. His research interests include global security governance and conflict management, in particular the interface of military force, policing and the rule of law in peace operations and counterinsurgency. In 2009, Philipp was briefly assigned to the German Federal Foreign Office at its Special Task Force on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before joining GPPi as a Research Associate in 2005, he worked for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Bosnia-Herzegovina. His commentary has been featured on the BBC, in the Financial Times Deutschland, and in the International Herald Tribune, among others. He studied at the universities of Erfurt, Essex, and the Free University Berlin and holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.