India and the Current Concerns of UN Peacekeeping: Issues and Prospects
Peacekeeping opera tion is amongst the volatile issues in the contemporary debate on the role and activities of United Nations. The United Nations uses the peacekeeping operation as a fire-fighting device, sent to the crisis situations in various corners of the world. It was an innovative method devised by accident rather than by design to deal with the impasse created by the Cold War between the two Superpowers. It began as an unambitious system in 1948 to deal with inter-state conflicts and by late 20th century, it has become a much sought after means to contain, calm and resolve intra-state disputes. The changed circumstances provided a conducive opportunity to finish the unfinished task of resolving some of the remaining inter-state conflicts of the Cold War period. Meanwhile, ethnic cleavages that remained suppressed during the cold-war period erupted, leading to civil war situations and secession movements.
Whose rules? Whose power? The Global South and the possibility to shape international peacekeeping norms through leadership appointments
Abstract International organisations reflect global power configurations and as such, are deemed to reproduce global inequalities. Nevertheless, they also represent opportunities for the Global South to challenge the global stratification of power, for instance by providing personnel to international agencies and bureaucracies. This article examines the role of leadership personnel from the Global South in implementing robust peacekeeping mandates. Given that states from the Global South have often been hesitant to support the use of force internationally, can leadership positions in peace operations help these states to influence norms at the implementation level? We develop a conceptual understanding of individuals’ role in implementing norms and apply the framework to military force commanders from Brazil, India, and Rwanda. The analysis demonstrates that appointments provide an opportunity for norm contestation, but do not necessarily guarantee such influence. Under certain circumstances, we find that military force commanders can actually undermine their governments’ preferences. However, the relation between force commanders’ practices and their country of origin's policy stance is complex and influenced by a variety of different factors that merit further investigation.
The CNN effect: can the news media drive foreign policy?
During the 1980s the proliferation of new technologies transformed the potential of the news media to provide a constant flow of global real-time news. Tiananmen Square and the collapse of communism symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall became major media events communicated to Western audiences instantaneously via TV news media. By the end of the decade the question was being asked as to what extent this ‘media pervasiveness’ had impacted upon government – particularly the process of foreign policy making. The new technologies appeared to reduce the scope for calm deliberation over policy, forcing policy-makers to respond to whatever issue journalists focused on. This perception was in turn reinforced by the end of the bipolar order and what many viewed as the collapse of the old anti-communist consensus which – it was argued – had led to the creation of an ideological bond uniting policy makers and journalists. Released from the ‘prism of the Cold War’ journalists were, it was presumed, freer not just to cover the stories they wanted but to criticise US foreign policy as well. The phrase ‘CNN effect’ encapsulated the idea that real-time communications technology could provoke major responses from domestic audiences and political elites to global events.