United Nations Peacekeeping

Catalog description

This seminar is devoted to an examination of United Nations peacekeeping, from its inception in 1956 in the wake of the Suez Crisis, to its increasingly important role as an enforcer of political stability in sub-Saharan Africa. We will look at the practice of "classic" peacekeeping as it developed during the Cold War, with the striking exception of the Congo Crisis of 1960; the rise and fall of so-called "second-generation peacekeeping" - more accurately labeled "peace enforcement" - in the early 1990s in Bosnia and Somalia; and the reemergence in recent years of a muscular form of peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa, most notably in Congo in 2013.Students will learn the basic history of the United Nations since 1945 and the fundamentals of the United Nations Charter, especially with respect to the use of force and the sovereignty of member states. While the course does not attempt to provide comprehensive coverage of the historical details of any particular peacekeeping mission, students should come away with a firm grasp of the historical trajectory of U.N. peacekeeping and the evolving arguments of its proponents and critics over the years. Each session of the course is structured around the discussion of assigned readings. Students are expected to complete the readings before class and to come to class prepared to participate in discussions. Each student will serve as rapporteur for one of the assigned readings, providing a critical summary of the reading in question and helping to stimulate the discussion to follow. The instructor will occasionally begin a session with brief introductory remarks (no more than ten minutes) to provide historical context about one or another topic. Required coursework includes two short papers whose particular topic and guidelines will be announced in class.