Power, politics and perception: the impact of foreign policy on civilian–peacekeeper relations

Abstract

This article responds to a recent call for increased empirical evidence on the ‘local turn’ in the peacebuilding literature and discusses the impact of the international on local consent for peace operations. Using fresh empirical material this article examines the case of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). It shows how local perceptions of the foreign policies of peacekeeping contingents matter, and how this affects the functionality of the mission. This article highlights the heterogeneity of both United Nations peacekeeping missions and local populations, an issue that is insufficiently discussed in the literature on local engagement in peacebuilding/peacekeeping.

Keywords:

• Peacebuilding
• civil society
• United Nations
• foreign policy
• Middle East

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was conducted as part of a PhD thesis undertaken at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, and as a Visiting Researcher with the American University of Beirut in 2013. The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. Interview with UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Tyre, South Lebanon, 6 December 2016.

2. Schierenbeck, “Beyond the Local Turn Divide,” 1023.

3. Paffenholz, “Unpacking the Local Turn,” 868.

4. ‘Peace operation’ here refers to a peacekeeping or peacebuilding mission, as often the two terms are located within the same mission. The UNIFIL Mission in South Lebanon, for example, engages in a great many peacebuilding activities despite being called a peacekeeping mission.

5. “The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacebuilding.”

6. Paffenholz, “Unpacking the Local Turn,” 858.

7. See, for example, Polman, We Did Nothing.

8. “The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacebuilding.”

9. This included 40 civilian interviews and 25 UNIFIL staff interviews. All these interviews were recorded and transcribed. Informal interviews in Dahiyeh were not recorded or transcribed owing to political sensitivities in this area.

10. This research also included some observation of UNIFIL practices: medical and dental outreach visits, national day celebrations, social calls to the local community, ad hoc interactions with the local population and visits to headquarters in Naqoura and battalion compounds.

11. This community often works in Beirut during the week and returns to their villages on weekends and holidays and as such know the UNIFIL mission well.

12. Howard, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Diehl and Druckman, Evaluating Peace Operations; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace.

13. Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo; Moore, Peacebuilding in Practice; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work; Whitworth, Men, Militarism; Pouligny, Peace Operations; Rubinstein, Peacekeeping Under Fire.

14. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace; Richmond, A Post Liberal Peace; Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; Howard, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars.

15. Karlsrud and da Costa, “Contextualising Liberal Peacebuilding”; da Costa and Karlsrud, “Moving Towards Local Level Peacebuilding?”; Schia and Karlsrud, “Where the Rubber Meets the Road.”

16. Moore, Peacebuilding in Practice; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work; Autesserre, The Trouble With the Congo; Franks and Richmond, “Co-Opting Liberal Peace-Building”; Whitworth, Men, Militarism; Pouligny, Peace Operations; Polman, We Did Nothing.

17. Whitworth, Men, Militarism.

18. Autesserre, The Trouble With the Congo.

19. Pouligny, Peace Operations.

20. Polman, We Did Nothing.

21. Moore, Peacebuilding in Practice.

22. A notable exception is Rubinstein, Peacekeeping Under Fire.

23. Lee and Ozerdem, Local Ownership; Mac Ginty, “Where is the Local?”

24. Richmond, “Beyond Local Ownership.”

25. Leonardsson and Rudd, “The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacebuilding,” 833.

26. Autesserre, Peaceland.

27. Whalan, How Peace Operations Work; Schierenbeck, “Beyond the Local Turn Divide.”

28. Duffey, “Cultural Issues in Contemporary Peacekeeping”; Richmond, “The Romanticisation of the Local”; Gizelis and Kosek, “Why Humanitarian Interventions Succeed”; Mac Ginty, “Indigenous Peace-Making”; Breidlid, “Turning to the South”; Hayman, “Local First in Peacebuilding.”

29. Philps, “Peacebuilding and Corruption”; Kingston, “The Pitfalls of Peacebuilding.”

30. Richmond, “The Romanticisation of the Local,” 156–157.

31. Narten, “Post-Conflict Peacebuilding”; Nadin and Cammaert, “Spoiler Groups”; Newman and Richmond, The Impact of Spoilers.

32. Hughes, Öjendal, and Schierenbeck, “The Struggle versus the Song,” 823.

33. Liden, “Building Peace,” 618.

34. Paffenholz, “Unpacking the Local Turn,” 858.

35. Narten, “Post-Conflict Peacebuilding”; Nadin and Cammaert, “Spoiler Groups”; Newman and Richmond, The Impact of Spoilers; Pouligny, Peace Operations; Rubinstein, Peacekeeping Under Fire.

36. Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition?”; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work.

37. Heiberg and Holst, “Comparing UNIFIL and the MNF.”

38. Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition?”10‒11.

39. Heiberg and Holst, “Comparing UNIFIL and the MNF,” 411.

40. Stedman, “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes,” 5.

41. Whitworth, Men, Militarism; Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo; Autesserre, Peaceland; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work; Pouligny, Peace Operations; Rubinstein, Peacekeeping Under Fire.

42. Whalan, How Peace Operations Work.

43. Whitworth, Men, Militarism.

44. Pouligny, Peace Operations.

45. Rubinstein, “Culture, International Affairs”; Duffey, “Cultural Issues in Contemporary Peacekeeping.”

46. See Heiberg and Holst, “Comparing UNIFIL and the MNF”; Albrecht and Haenlein, “Fragmented Peacekeeping”; Albrecht, “Fragmented Peacekeeping.”

47. UNSC Resolution 1701, 11 August 2006, 3.

48. Interview with UNIFIL political affairs officer, Naqoura, South Lebanon, 10 October 2013.

49. Interview with UNIFIL public information officer, Naqoura, South Lebanon, 13 August 2013.

50. Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World; Hurd, “Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics.”

51. Whalan, How Peace Operations Work.

52. Ibid.

53. For detailed information, see for example United Nations Secretary-General, Report of the Secretary General on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006)’, S/2016/189, 26 February 2016.

54. Less wealthy battalions, such as Ghana, are provided money for projects by UNIFIL Headquarters.

55. The UN itself does not have a definition of peacekeeping in its Charter. However, there are two articles that refer to the concept of the maintenance of international peace and security, Chapter VI and Chapter VII. Chapter VI provides for the peaceful settlement of disputes by, among other things, negotiation and adjudication; and Chapter VII contains the collective security provisions which were intended to be the foundation of its policy on the maintenance of global peace. The UN has largely avoided providing strict definitions of peacekeeping; however, in 2003 it did provide a taxonomy of the tasks that comprise peacekeeping which help to provide clarity on the varied tasks involved in peacekeeping, see Murphy, “UN Peacekeeping in Lebanon and the Use of Force.”

56. Heiberg and Holst, “Comparing UNIFIL and the MNF,” 399–400.

57. The suspected cause of the attack was possibly Spanish overreach of the mission’s mandate (they had been seen monitoring Hizbullah activity north of the Litani River, which was outside the area of operations). Although never officially confirmed, the attack was believed to have been carried out by Hizbullah as a warning to UNIFIL not to interfere with its operations north of the Litani River. See Blanford, Warriors of God. 420.

58. In 2015/16, UNIFIL experienced 18 incidents with the local population.

59. United Nations Secretary-General, “Report of the Secretary-General,” S/2016/189; United Nations Secretary-General, “Report of the Secretary-General,” S2015/837; United Nations Secretary-General, “Report of the Secretary-General,” S/2015/475.

60. Interview with UNIFIL peacekeeper, Al-Tiri, South Lebanon, 20 November 2013.

61. This refers to the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001. Initially called ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ the intervention morphed into the ‘International Security Assistance Force’ supported by the UN and later by NATO. This was followed by the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, a US-led multinational force initially comprised of troops from the US, the UK, Poland and Australia. These invasions are extremely unpopular amongst many communities in the Middle East, see Hawley, “The United States Is ‘Aggressive, Morally Decadent and Racist’”. This is due to the negative effects the invasions have had on the local populations of these states in terms of civilian deaths, torture of local civilians by troops and the resultant sectarian conflict that emerged in Iraq. In addition, there is a perception that these ‘interventions’ are an attempt by the US and the UK to project power and maintain control over the region.

62. Interview with UNIFIL public information officer, Naqoura, South Lebanon, 13 August 2013.

63. Interview with civilian, Tayrdebba Village, South Lebanon, 10 October 2013.

64. Ibid.

65. Interview with UNIFIL peacekeeper, Qlayaa, South Lebanon, 29 August 2013.

66. Interview with UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Tyre, South Lebanon, 6 December 2016.

67. Ibid.

68. Interview with UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Tyre, South Lebanon, 6 December 2016.

69. Interview with UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Naqoura, South Lebanon, 13 August 2013.

70. Interview with senior UNIFIL political affairs officer, Tyre, South Lebanon, 9 July 2016.

71. See Madan, ‘Why India and Israel are Bringing their Relationship out.”

72. Interview with UNIFIL public information officer, Naqoura, 13 August, 2013.

73. This includes civil affairs officers, political affairs officers and public information officers.

74. Interview with UNIFIL political affairs officer, Beirut, Lebanon, 30 August 2013.

75. Interview with UNIFIL political affairs officer, Beirut, Lebanon, 15 November 2013.

76. Interview with UNIFIL public information officer, Naqoura, 13 August, 2013.

77. “Kidnapped Turks.”

78. Zaatari, “Relatives of Hostages.”

79. Saad and Barnard, “Turkish Pilots Kidnapped.”

80. “Turkey to Remove Troops.”

81. “Turkey to Remove Troops”; “Turkey to Withdraw Bulk of Contingent”; Issacharoff, “Turkey to Withdraw Troops.”

82. Interview with UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Tyre, South Lebanon, 6 December 2016.

83. Interview with civilian, Tayrdebba, South Lebanon, 10 October 2013.

84. Interview with UNIFIL public information officer, Naqoura, South Lebanon, 13 August 2013.

85. Black, “EU Resists Hezbollah Ban.”

86. Kanter and Rudoren, “European Union Adds Military Wing.”

87. Zaatari, “Southerners Find Hilarity.”

88. Interview with civilian, Tayrdebba, South Lebanon, 10 October 2013.

89. Hussein, “UNIFIL Seen as Unaffected.”

90. Interview with civilian, Al-Tiri, South Lebanon, 8 October 2013.

91. Interview with civilian, Marja’youn, South Lebanon, 27 August 2013.