GPPi contributes to workshop on UN peacekeeping research in Germany

On December 12, GPPi Associate Director Philipp Rotmann and GPPi Research Associate Steffen Eckhard participated in a workshop on peacekeeping research jointly hosted by the German Society for the United Nations and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation. Titled ​“Tapping the Potential of Peacekeeping Research in Germany – Issues, Approaches, Challenges,” the workshop brought together researchers and practitioners who work in the area of United Nations peacekeeping.

Rotmann and Eckhard contributed to a panel called ​“Organizing UN Peacekeeping,” which focused on scholarly contributions to the ongoing organizational transformation of United Nations peacekeeping. They were joined on the panel by Peter Schumann and Frederik Trettin, both from the University of Konstanz.

As chair, Rotmann opened the discussion by arguing that management reform had become a major issue in UN peacekeeping since around 1999, when Kofi Annan appointed a commission to assess the shortcomings of the system and make recommendations for change. Since then, reform can be considered the quasi modus operandi at the United Nations, and it is important to investigate what has been achieved thus far.

In their contributions, the three panelists offered different perspectives on the impact of management reforms in peacekeeping. Trettin, who is pursuing a PhD on UN peacekeeping, argued that a politicized UN bureaucracy prevents large scale organizational change, and that only small and focused reform initiatives may make a difference.

Eckhard, who drew from his PhD research on the UN, EU and OSCE, argued that there is a clear trend to increasingly apply strategic management concepts in peacekeeping. Many of these concepts were originally developed for the private business sector. Applied in peacekeeping, he argued, they tend to provide a straightjacket for peacekeeping missions and prevent them from flexibly reacting to the often rapidly changing conflict environment.

Schumann, who has had a successful career in UN peacekeeping, argued that one major key to improving the success of peacekeeping is not only to reform organizational routines in peace operations, but more generally to change the political attitude of member states who often lack the will and interest to solve armed conflict.

Regarding the potential of peacekeeping research in Germany, the panel showed that researchers and practitioners are concerned with very different aspects within the complex phenomenon of post-conflict peacekeeping. To foster exchange and debate between these perspectives, participants agreed that similar meetings of the German peacekeeping community in the future would be highly appreciated.