https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3172-3901
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ABSTRACT
This article explores the application of complexity theory to UN peacekeeping. To date, peacekeeping has been dominated by linear models of change, assuming that conflict settings can be addressed by elite-driven peace processes, gradual improvements to state institutional capacity, and development programming. However, this article argues that complexity theory offers a far more accurate and useful lens through which to view the work of peacekeeping: conflict settings represent complex, interdependent socio-political systems with emergent qualities giving them the capacity to self-organize via feedback loops and other adaptive activity. Self-organization means such systems are highly resistant to attempts to change behaviour via top-down or input-output approaches. In fact, peacekeeping itself is endogenous to the systems it is trying to change, often displaying the same kinds of self-organization typical of complex systems elsewhere. Drawing on experience working and conducting fieldwork in the UN peacekeping mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article argues that UN peacekeeping operations should view themselves as actors within the complex conflict ecosystem, looking to enable transformational change from within, rather than impose liberal Western models from without.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Johnson, Simply Complexity; Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour.
2 Conveney and Highfield, Frontiers of Complexity, 5–10.
3 NB: While the language of complexity is increasingly used by practitioners, the real implications of complexity are poorly understood or applied.
4 Brusset, de Coning, and Hughes, Complexity Thinking for Peacebuilding Practice and Evaluation.
5 Kleinfeld, Improving Development Aid Design and Implementation; Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge of Chaos; de Coning, “Adaptive Peacebuilding”.
6 Veblen and Boulton, “Why is economics not an evolutionary science?” 8–9.
7 Bonner, The Evolution of Complexity, 3–25.
8 Mitchell Complexity: A Guided Tour; Veblen and Boulton, “Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science”; Boulding, Evolutionary Economics.
9 Cilliers, Complexity and Postmodernism, 15.
10 Prigonine, “Long Term Trends and the Evolution of Complexity”; Prigonine, “Time, Structure and Fluctuations”.
11 Boulton, Allen, and Bowman, Embracing Complexity, 32.
12 The features and properties discussed here are a synthesised list drawing on numerous attempts across different disciplines to summarise the core characteristics of complex systems. See: Hendrick, “Complexity Theory and Conflict Transformation,” 6–7; Ramalingam, “Exploring the Science of Complexity”; Mitleton-Kelly, “Ten Principles of Complexity”.
13 Hunt, “Beyond the Binaries”.
14 Meadows, “Leverage Points”.
15 Westley, Zimmerman, and Patton, Getting to Maybe.
16 McGlade and Garnsey, “The Nature of Complexity,” 5.
17 Conveney and Highfield, Frontiers of Complexity, 232.
18 Gladwell, The Tipping Point.
19 Coleman, “Navigating the Landscape of Conflict”.
20 Ibid.
21 Cramer, “Trajectories of Accumulation,” 130.
22 The arguments in the passages below were first made in Hunt, UN Peace Operations and International Policing, 109-111.
23 Hendrick, “Complexity Theory and Conflict Transformation,” 17–21.
24 Frei and Ramalingam, “Foreign Policy and Complex Adaptive Systems”.
25 Sorenson, “‘Book Review’”; Paley, “Complex Adaptive Systems,” 234.
26 Ramalingam, “Exploring the Science of Complexity,” 78.
27 Byrne, Complexity Theory. See also: Geyer and Rihani, Complexity and Public Policy; Room, Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy; Morçöl, A Complexity Theory for Public Policy; Rhodes et al., Public Management and Complexity Theory.
28 Bousquet and Curtis, “Beyond Models and Metaphors”; Kavalski, World Politics at the Edge of Chaos.
29 Woolcock, “Towards a Plurality of Methods in Project Evaluation”; Green, How Change Happens, Kleinfeld, “Improving Development Aid; Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge of Chaos.
30 Hughes, Hunt, and Curth-Bibb, Forging New Conventional Wisdom Beyond International Policing.
31 Richardson, Mathieson, and Cilliers, “Complexity Thinking and Military Operational Analysis”; Wiuff Moe and Müller, Reconfiguring Intervention.
32 Brusset, de Coning, and Hughes, Complexity Thinking for Peacebuilding; de Coning, “From Peacebuilding to Sustaining Peace”.
33 Hunt, “Emerging Powers”.
34 Hunt, “Avoiding Perplexity”; Hunt, “Complexity Theory”.
35 Clement and Smith, “Managing Complexity”.
36 Campbell, “(Dis)Integration, Incoherence and Complexity”.
37 Day and Hunt, “UN Stabilisation Operations”.
38 de Coning, “From Peacebuilding to Sustaining Peace”; “Adaptive Peace Operations”; “Insights from Complexity Theory for Peace and Conflict Studies”; “The Future of UN Peace Operations”.
39 Day and Hunt, “UN Stabilisation Operations”.
40 See, for example, Aoi, de Coning, and Thakur, Unintended Consequences of Peacekeeping Operations.
41 Ramalingam, “Exploring the Science of Complexity,” 12.
42 See Note 35 above.
43 Raeymakers, Violent Capitalism; Trefon, Reinventing Order in the Congo; Turner, The Congo Wars; Prunier, Africa's World War; Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters.
44 Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers, “New political order in the DR Congo?” 39–52.
45 Oxfam America, “No Will, No Way”; Melmot, “Candide au Congo”.
46 This is not to say such insights have not been made previously. See for example, Tull, "A Reconfiguration of Political Order?”
47 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement”.
48 Stearns and Vogel, “The Landscape of Armed Groups”.
49 Verweijen, “Stable Instability”.
50 Hunt, “All Necessary Means to What Ends?”
51 Von Billerbeck and Tansey, “Enabling Autocracy?”
52 de Heredia, “Militarism, States and Resistance in Africa”.
53 Congo Research Group, Impasse in the Congo.
54 Blair, Peacekeeping, Policing, and the Rule of Law after Civil War; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work.
55 Jennings and Boas, “Transactions and Interactions”.
56 See, for example, Novosseloff, “Assessing the Effectiveness”.
57 The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for emphasising this point.
58 Forti, “UN Peacekeeping and CPAS”.
59 Lacayo, “What Complexity Science Teaches Us”.
60 Autesserre, Peaceland; Finnemore and Barnett, Rules for the World.
61 See, for example, Brusset, de Coning, and Hughes, Complexity Thinking for Peacebuilding; Hughes, Hunt, and Curth-Bibb, Forging New Conventional Wisdom.
62 Cunliffe, “The Politics of Global Governance in UN Peacekeeping”.
63 Autesserre, Peaceland.
64 Sabaratnam, Decolonising Intervention.
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Notes on contributors
Adam Day
Adam Day is head of the Geneva Office of United Nations University Centre for Policy Research where he oversees programming on peacebuilding, human rights, peacekeeping, climate-security, sanctions, and global governance and Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs. His research is focused on conflict prevention, peace operations, climate-security, and armed group dynamics. His work has been published by Stability Journal, Global Governance, Ethics and International Affairs, Oxford University Press, and Routledge.
Charles T. Hunt
Charles T. Hunt is Associate Professor of Global Security in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University, Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research and honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. He is Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Global Responsibility to Protect and on the editorial board of International Peacekeeping and the Journal of International Peacekeeping. His research is focused on UN peace operations and peacebuilding in conflict-affected states with recent articles published in Survival, Cooperation and Conflict, Civil Wars and Global Governance.