Many scholars have detected a decrease in political violence in recent decades, but the causes of this decline remain unclear. As a contribution to this debate, this chapter revisits the controversy over trends in conflict after the end of the Cold War. While several scholars made ominous predictions of surging ethnic warfare, Ted Robert Gurr presented evidence of a pacifying trend since the mid?1990s and predicted a further decline in ethnic conflict in an article on "ethnic warfare on the wane." Leveraging more recent data on ethnic groups and their participation in ethnic civil wars, this chapter evaluates if Gurr was right about the decline of ethnic conflict, and if he was right for the right reasons. We assess whether an increase in governments' accommodative policies toward ethnic groups can plausibly account for a decline in ethnic civil war. Our findings are largely compatible with Gurr's observations and stand in stark contrast to various pessimistic projections that were made in the early post-Cold War period. Among a number of empirical dimensions, we have found that this relatively optimistic perspective holds up well despite a surge in civil conflict in recent years. Ethnic, as opposed to non-ethnic, civil wars appear to have subsided after the mid-1990s, and this decline is at least partially attributable to an increase in governments' accommodative policies toward ethnic groups, such as the granting of group rights, regional autonomy, and inclusion through governmental power sharing, as well as democratization and peacekeeping.

This chapter introduces the jus ad bellum: the rules of law determining when states may resort to war or, more broadly, the use of armed force. These rules must be distinguished from the jus in bello: these are the rules of law that apply in armed conflict (known as international humanitarian law). In order to put the current jus ad bellum rules into perspective, the chapter begins by introducing the concept of collective security and demonstrating how this was applied during the League of Nations era. The following sections set out the relevant rules of the UN Charter on the prevention and regulation of recourse to the use of force, with a particular focus on the prohibition on the threat or use of force. The chapter also discusses the collective use of force, meaning the use of force authorized by the Security Council, and the unilateral use of force in self-defense. Finally, the chapter examines whether new exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force are emerging -- in particular, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect.

This brief, concluding chapter draws together the main themes and arguments of the book and the ways in which peacekeeping has become embedded in the contemporary history and politics of large parts of the African continent. The chapter also reflects on the future of African peacekeeping. In doing so, it points to two trajectories relating to political systems and 'new' and 'old' peacekeepers. The authors underscore the different ways in which peacekeeping has interacted with domestic and regional politics in countries and regions governed by authoritarian versus democratic governments. Peacekeeping has played a particularly critical role in the former, it is suggested, where it has been incorporated into practices of illiberal, militarised statebuilding. The authors conclude the chapter, and book, by pointing to the relatively rapid emergence of a 'new generation' of African peacekeeping states since the early 2000s and the implications this has for the future of African peacekeeping itself.

This chapter examines the critical interplay between African peacekeeping and the evolution of national and regional identities. It does so by exploring two levels of identity – regional and national. The growing prominence of regionally led African peacekeeping missions and initiatives since the 1980s has, the authors argue, fed into the establishment of regional identities and blocs across the continent, particularly in West Africa. It has also, however, provided a range of fora through which states can contest and re-negotiate their regional identity, and the authors explore the case of Tanzania in particular in this regard. The authors also highlight how peacekeeping has been incorporated into processes of post-conflict and post-liberation identity building, looking at Rwanda and South Africa, where peacekeeping missions have been understood as representations of post-genocide Rwanda or the ‘new South Africa’ and where peacekeepers have been heralded as embodiments of a new political settlement and normative positioning of the relationship between state and society.

This chapter introduces the study and its approach to examining African peacekeeping. The book is framed around two central arguments. The first is the importance of emphasising and understanding historical legacies and the European colonial enterprise when exploring and analysing African peacekeeping. The second is that African peacekeeping is best understood through the lens of practice theory, an approach which allows the authors to demonstrate just how deeply embedded in both domestic and foreign policy-making peacekeeping has become across the continent over time. The introduction then goes on to outline the data and source material which the book draws on – which includes over ten years’ worth of fieldwork data collected by the authors – and provides a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book’s structure and argument.

Rather than exploring peacekeeping as a largely external phenomenon, the chapter examines how it has become, in some African states, a core mechanism for the consolidation and maintenance of political power. Peacekeeping operations, often funded by international actors and linked to increased salaries, training and status, provide an opportunity for African governments to prefer or circulate elites, enhance and augment the discipline and capacity of security forces, and socialise the cost of an expanding security state. The authors examine a number of states, including Uganda and Burundi, where peacekeeping has become a semi-permanent element of – largely illiberal - statebuilding in recent decades. They also highlight the delicate balance African governments must strike in building peacekeeping into the management of domestic political and military actors without sowing the seeds of resentment and rebellion, examining the cases of Burkina Faso and Gambia in particular.

The bulk of African peacekeeping is funded externally, particularly by Western powers. Indeed, some African peacekeeping missions have been unable to get off the ground – literally – without logistical and other support from beyond the continent. This has led some commentators to argue that African peacekeeping is not, in fact, 'owned' by Africa. This claim is explored and challenged in this chapter. The authors begin by unpacking and historicising the concept of Pan-Africanism, a language often marshalled by African governments to explain and interpret their involvement in peacekeeping but also a discourse which can obscure as much as it reveals. The chapter then looks in greater depth at the funding and governance of African peacekeeping missions, looking in particular at the bureaucratic politics at the heart of the African Union. The chapter concludes by problematising the linking of financial support to lack of ownership in the context of peacekeeping, underscoring the various ways in which African states and governments exercise agency in the peacekeeping sphere despite their dependence upon external funding.

This chapter analyses the increasing trend of African post-conflict states contributing troops to multilateral peace operations. In particular, it focuses on the case studies of Burundi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The authors argue that troop contribution can become a shortcut to reforming, restructuring as well as unifying post-conflict armies through international assistance and training linked to peace operations. This saves budget-constraint post-conflict governments from investing significant funds to the project of building a functional and professional army. In addition, for post-conflict states, which may have remaining domestic issues, sending troops abroad may ease tensions at home and thus facilitate governing. The authors also look into the identity dimension of post-conflict states who contribute troops to peace operations. The decision to contribute troops can assist states to transform their identities from that of post-conflict states to peacekeeping states. Such a transformation can have important consequences on relations with both internal actors and international partners.

The main aim of this chapter is to give readers an overview of the evolution of African peacekeeping over time, delineating two somewhat distinct histories of the phenomenon. The chapter first examines the orthodox version of the evolution of African peacekeeping. Here, the focus is on the change from the OAU’s principle of non-intervention to the African Union’s notion of non-indifference. The authors trace this normative shift to the period after the Rwandan genocide, and to the broader security concept including the notion of human security. In line with this development, the chapter gives a brief overview of how the African Peace and Security Architecture represent this normative change in its structure and principles. In addition the chapter underlines the longer (pre-)history of African peacekeeping and the links that can be drawn between today’s peacekeeping, the creation of colonial police forces and armies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and European colonial powers’ deployment of African troops for regional 'pacification' military campaigns. The case of Ghana – and the Ghanaian Police Force – is explored as a case study in developing this argument.

This chapter unpacks the critical relationship between African peacekeeping and the continent’s international relations, tracing peacekeeping’s evolution from the periphery to the heart of many bilateral and multilateral relationships. In the aftermath of the failed 1993 UN/US-led intervention in Somalia and 1994 Rwandan genocide, the authors argue, Western powers sought to disengage from direct military involvement on the continent, increasingly relying on African states and militaries to provide ‘African solutions to African problems’. This dynamic has evolved into Western (and, increasingly, Chinese and Russian) underwriting of African peacekeeping missions, from Somalia to the DRC, and the growing subsidising of African security states by international partners. The chapter examines this development and how it has enabled a range of African governments, from Chad to Ethiopia, to carve out greater room for manoeuvre in their (often aid-dependent) relations with international actors. This has, the authors argue, had profound implications for domestic politics in a number of instances.

The need to rebuild the security infrastructure in a postconflict state is of paramount importance for ensuring a durable peace. This chapter examines the complicated tradeoffs parties face sharing and/or reestablishing the monopoly of force, including when sharing force with the international community; the questions of the consent of the state, and often the consent of the nonstate parties; the nature and configuration of the international forces, including the command structure of the international forces; and the mandate of those forces. The chapter also analyzes cases during which the state seeks to integrate nonstate armed actors into the national forces, when parties are faced with the questions of how best to provide for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of nonstate forces, coupled with security sector reform for the national forces. The chapter additionally examines the questions that arise when the state seeks to restore limited control over the monopoly of force by permitting nonstate actors to come under the umbrella command of the national forces, including to what extent to promote some degree of integration among special units of the state and nonstate forces, as well as a timeline for the eventual integration of forces.

The conclusion examines my argument’s implications for both scholarship and policy. For scholars, the evidence I offer here challenges the strict geographic and chronological separation between time periods and peacekeeping missions that some studies take as given. For policymakers, the arguments and evidence I advance contribute to ongoing debates about the future of peace operations. Peacekeeping today is turning increasingly towards a more military posture—but key among my argument’s implications is the idea that if the reconstruction, investment, and refugee resettlement services the international community can provide are more important than security protection to some combatants, then tying negotiation, peacekeeping, and intervention more tightly to the UN’s aid and humanitarian agencies may represent another, better direction for the UN.

The United Nation’s 1990s peacekeeping and peacemaking provoked introspection at the UN, but did not doom the UN’s peacekeeping or peacemaking enterprises. Why does UN peacekeeping remain a desirable part of peace processes despite its reputation as an ineffective measure of protection for civilian populations and warring parties alike?  This book investigates why peacekeeping survived its early catastrophes and how this survival should lead us to reconsider how peacekeeping works. I advance two key claims: first, I argue the UN’s central role in peacemaking and peacekeeping worldwide means peace operations have structural consequences: what the UN does in one place can shift strategies, outcomes, and options available to parties to conflict in other places. Second, drawing peace processes in Rwanda and Guatemala, I argue combatants turn to the UN because its presence enables unique tactical, symbolic, and post-conflict reconstruction outcomes that have little to do with the end of fighting. Combatants who negotiate with the UN’s assistance after peacekeeping failures may do so because negotiation affords them benefits even when they are neither invested in peace nor convinced the UN can help them achieve it. The introduction outlines the problem, situates the answer, and summarizes each chapter of the book.

Chapter 5 embarks upon an analysis of the UNSC’s approach to ‘conflict resources’ by considering its use of sanctions, panels/groups of experts, and peacekeeping missions. It will show that UNSC commodity-focused interventions have sought to address the economic motivations for starting and prolonging armed conflict, while failing to bring about the systemic changes necessary to achieve ‘positive peace’. By securitising resource extraction in conflict zones and supporting ‘good governance’ reforms in post-conflict countries, questions of sustainability and more equitable access/distribution of natural resources have been sidelined. Thereafter, through engaging with ongoing debates on the peace and security implications of climate change, the chapter illuminates the limits of existing conceptual/legal frameworks underpinning the practice of the UNSC and the need to rethink what peace and security mean in times of ecological disruption.