The Research On Problems Concerning UN Peace Keeping Operation

The UN peacekeeping operations began with the establishment of the UN Truce Supervision Organization in 1948.After more than 70 years of ups and downs,the UN peacekeeping operations have grown into effective tools for global crisis management and armed conflict management.Up to now,the United Nations has carried out 71 peacekeeping operations,of which 15 were carried out in the first 40 years(1948-1988).In the past 30 years,the number of peacekeeping operations was 3.7 times that of the previous 40 years,playing a very important role in world peace and stability.With the constant changes in the political and economic pattern of the entire international community,the authorization content involved in peacekeeping operations is also gradually changing.The scope of peacekeeping missions involved is also becoming more and more widely,including the truce supervision,conflict suppression,peace to establish comprehensive task,which have gone far beyond the original authorized tasks such as the supervision of a single task.And the features of the comprehensive task are big increases in the number of peacekeeping deployment of personnel,funds,multi-sectoral close coordination and cooperation.In this process,one of the questions that always accompanies peacekeeping is how effective are peacekeeping operations?Can UN peacekeeping be replaced?The answers to the above questions are basically not consistent.In general,although the performance of peacekeeping operations is mixed,under the current international political pattern,if not the only one,UN peacekeeping operations are at least one of the important choices to curb the spread of armed conflicts and maintain international stability.Therefore,what aspects of peacekeeping operations are successful and what aspects have problems has become an important issue puzzling researchers and relevant policy makers.From the perspective of existing studies,although peacekeeping operations are of great value to the maintenance of global security,relevant studies on peacekeeping operations have always been in the non-mainstream or marginal,and have not received due attention.As a Chinese peacekeeper in the UN peacekeeping system,I have been deeply aware of all kinds of problems in the process of peacekeeping operations during my decades of peacekeeping.Therefore,fristly embarking from the peacekeeping development and evolution process,from the definition of peacekeeping operations,core principle,planning and deployment process,funding,and the change of the peacekeeping body perspective,this paper analyzes the change trend of peacekeeping operations in more than 70 years,on this basis,classifies and summaries the the characteristics of different stages of the development of peacekeeping operations.Secondly,taking peacekeeping operations as the starting point,this paper summarizes the multi-dimensional evaluation criteria for the success or failure of peacekeeping operations,and analyzes specific peacekeeping missions by using this criterion.Moreover,the key factors affecting the success or failure of peacekeeping operations are also analyzed and discussed by using econometric methods.Finally,taking peacekeeping operations as the main line,this paper analyzes the determination of the main body of peacekeeping operations,the decision-making process of peacekeeping intervention and the specific mechanism of peacekeeping operations by using relevant theories and research paradigms of institutional economics.In this way,it can provide some theoretical basis and experience for solving the challenges and problems encountered in peacekeeping operations,and also provide some reference for China's peacekeeping operations.The evolution process and development trend of peacekeeping operations over the past 70 years show that,first,the mandate of peacekeeping operations is more "omprehensive"and has gradually shifted from traditional peacekeeping missions of supervision to comprehensive peacekeeping operations focusing on peace building.With the increasing complexity,integration and danger of peacekeeping missions,the "three principles" set in the early stage of peacekeeping have been broken to a large extent,especially the principle of maintaining a neutral attitude and not using force except for self-defence.Secondly,the trend of peacekeeping operations shows an obvious political and geographical phenomenon.The deployment of peacekeeping operations is mainly in Africa,which also shows from another aspect that Africa is the place where the international community plays games or"arm-wrestling".Third,the cooperation among peacekeeping entities is getting closer and closer.Especially in Africa,regional peacekeeping entities are more and more willing to participate in international peacekeeping operations and have made diversified attempts on the cooperation mode of peacekeeping operations.It can be said that the assessment of the success or failure of peacekeeping operations has been a difficult problem for researchers and policy makers since the birth of peacekeeping operations.Both theoretical and practical assessments are full of controversies and challenges.Success or failure of the evaluation methodology involves many obstacles,such as how to define success(definition of peace,positive vs negative),measure content(mandate,conflict restrictions,conflict resolution,qualitative vs quantitative analysis),who is going to assess(local observers vs external observer),time span(action current vs for a long time).At the practical level,there are also great challenges,such as the collection of various peacekeeping indicators and data,and the imperfect systems of peacekeeping host countries,which make the practical activities of peacekeeping operations unable to be promoted smoothly.In addition,it is related to the issue of "case-based" assessment of peacekeeping operations,which is more about the study of individual cases and lacks the universality of the practice process.Based on the assessment framework of Diehl and Druckman(2010),this paper makes a scientific and rigorous assessment of the peacekeeping operations of UNMIL in Liberia's transitional Government.The assessment indicates that UNMIL's peacekeeping operations in Liberia during the transitional phase have been relatively successful.The peacekeeping mission basically completes the UN mandate including safeguarding regional security and prevent the situation to upgrade core tasks.In the aspect of as the organization efficiency,the mission ensures that the United Nations staff safety and freedom of movement,quick response and protect civilians from violence at a critical moment,but has not made significant effect in terms of peace building.Based on the evaluation of peacekeeping successes and conflict selection theory,relevant assumptions affecting the success or failure of peacekeeping operations are put forward,and Logit regression model is used to analyze the factors affecting the success or failure of peacekeeping operations.The results show that there are some differences between the actual effects of peacekeeping operations and theoretical assumptions.The influing factors of the success or failure of the peacekeeping operations include degree of peacekeeping deployment parties agree,the deployment period of the peacekeeping operations,the authorization of the peacekeeping operations quality,big country's agreement to the deployment of peacekeeping operations,the degree of the endowment of mineral resources,the number of parties,the scale of the peacekeeping personnel dispatched and the regional distribution of the peacekeeping operations.The robustness results show that the quality of authorization,degree of party consent,and deployment period of peacekeeping operations are all significant in all models,while the effect of other variables are different in different models.Peacekeeping operations,to a certain extent,are a balanced art.In the complex and volatile national environment as well as the diverse economic,political,cultural and religious differences,peacekeeping operations seek common ground while reserving differences,prompt various factions to give up armed conflicts and move towards peace.Therefore,it is of great value to investigate the peacekeeping subject,the operational decision-making of peacekeeping subject and its mechanism of action in the operation process.The research of this paper shows that the institutionalization level of peacekeeping operations led by the United Nations is the highest,and the other institutionalization levels are respectively authorized by the United Nations,recognized by the United Nations,and non-United Nations peacekeeping system arrangements.The realization process of peacekeeping operations is mainly a process of mutual testing and games between peacekeeping parties based on the relationship between the parties to the conflict,until the contracting cost equals the governance cost.The matching mechanism between peacekeeping entities and host countries is that,in a balanced situation,peacekeeping entities with a higher level of institutionalization should participate in peacekeeping operations with a smaller relational specific investment,while entities with a lower level of institutionalization should participate in peacekeeping operations with a larger relational specific investment.The Decision of the United Nations to intervene in the civil war is a more complex process,and it is far from sufficient to use the peace agreements signed by the warring parties as a signal of intervention,and cannot be a sufficient condition for intervention.The decision of intervention in peacekeeping operations is the result of the joint action of the United Nations and the war parties,and is the result of the cost-benefit analysis of each party under the assumed situation.However,when the intervention decision of the United Nations is made,the success of peacekeeping operations mainly depends on whether the peacekeeping operations can meet the interests of all parties,and on the other hand depends on the strategic efficiency and long-term support of the United Nations in the process of peacekeeping operations.The United Nations needs to take multi-dimensional considerations before it makes decisions to intervene in peacekeeping operations,especially to identify the tendencies of major forces in conflicts.From the perspective of limited access order proposed by NWW and taking the fragile limited access order of The Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC)as an example,this paper analyzes the mechanism of peacekeeping operations.The intervention of the organization of peacekeeping operations can be regarded as a kind of external assistance in essence.Peacekeeping organizations mainly play different roles in governing coalitions according to different tasks.For example,they often play the roles of coordination and mediation in contract negotiation and signing.It plays the role of coordination and punishment in the process of supervising the fiery agreement.In the process of presidential election and democratic promotion,it plays a leading and promoting role(providing rent,election supervision,program formulation,etc.).In addition,the role also includes creating rents and proposing rent distribution way for the development of the dominant coalition,expanding the dominant coalition,trying to keep the stability of the dominant coalition and persistence,which can ensure the reduce of violence,and the anticipated stability singal display of United Nations as a third party authority "neutrality" and "impartiality" for the host country factions,the international community and public.