United Nations Peacekeeping and Conflict Management (UNPAC)

For a long time, the United Nations was widely regarded as the central actor in multi­lateral conflict manage­ment. Yet the number of UN-led peace opera­tions has been in steady decline. Contem­porary debates increasingly focus on regional organi­sations rather than the UN, or on ad hoc arrange­ments outside any established insti­tutional framework.

This disser­tation examines how the roles of four Inter­national Organisations engaged in multi­lateral peace operations — the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, and the Organisation for Security and Co-­operation in Europe (OSCE) — have changed over time. Its theo­retical aim is to develop a theory of role change in International Organisations, identi­fying the conditions under which orga­nisations change their roles and the mecha­nisms through which such changes occur.

To address these questions, the project harmo­nises existing datasets on peace operations, en­abling systematic comparison of the man­dates and operational practices of all missions in which the four orga­nisations have been involved. Official documents, archival materials, Member State state­ments, and interviews are used to trace role-change pro­cesses and assess the condi­tions under which they take place.