Two Years After the Juba Clashes: Has UNMISS’s Protection of Displaced People Improved?

Two years after serious fighting in South Sudan killed more than 20 civilians, has UNMISS improved its ability to protect displaced people?

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Thijs Van Laer

The Loss of Arms and Ammunition in Peace Operations: Mapping and Addressing the Challenge

Loss of materiel occurs in many circumstances, from direct attacks on peacekeeper bases to the repatriation or resupply of forces, and occasionally by deliberate diversion.

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Jefferson Brehm

Global Peace Operations 2018: Year in Review

This new report adds fresh analysis and insights into recent developments in UN peace operations.

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Ryan Rappa

Richard Gowan

The end of a peacekeeping era

The UN should be rightly proud of its successful tour of duty in Liberia. But the conditions that allowed UNMIL to succeed are partially or totally absent in most of its current missions. It may be too late to turn the clock back.

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Richard Gowan

Trends in Special Political Missions

In recent years, there has been an overall downward trend in budgets and personnel for peacekeeping operations. Does this mean more resources are being dedicated to conflict prevention and mediation activities? The data suggests this could be the case.

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Ryan Rappa

New UN chief, new priorities

The data shows early signs of a dramatic realignment towards gender parity in senior leadership at the UN.

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Ryan Rappa

Reversing the trend: UN Peacekeeping in 2017

Over the last two decades, the number of UN peacekeepers stationed around the world climbed steadily with few interruptions. In the past few years however, this trend has reversed and continued to decline in 2017.

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Ryan Rappa

As the U.S. gets more involved in Somalia, beware these three fallacies

The United States is getting more involved in Somalia, the nation in the Horn of Africa that has been wrestling with violent conflict and political instability for nearly three decades.

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Michael F. Harsch

Maximilian M. Meduna

Teresa Krug 

Owning God: An Identity Based View of Violent Extremism

Violent extremism is caused by an avowed identity derived from strong religious beliefs and a strong in-group membership that stigmatizes and dehumanizes other groups and beliefs.

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Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob

Protecting Protection: How António Guterres Should Use Funding Cuts to Reform Peacekeeping

In Secretary-General António Guterres’ report on Protection of Civilians released on 25 May, he called on peacekeepers to “recognize their responsibility to act, to the full extent of their mandates and capabilities, to prevent and respond to threats against civilians.”

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Adam Day

Lauren Spink

Can we make UN peacekeeping great again?

If UN peacekeeping operations are “at a crossroads” as the Secretary-General told the Security Council on 6 April, then it is a policy and linguistic roundabout. Does this mean that the policy debate that surrounds UN peacekeeping has just been going around in circles for the past twenty years?

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Alexandra Novosseloff