Blue Helmet Bureaucracy: Peacekeeping as Colonial Ambition, a Lesson in Governance, and the Exploitation of 'Humanitarianism'

This thesis seeks to uncover how post-colonial dynamics have influenced the politics and practice of peacekeeping over the last fifty years through investigating the role of former colonial powers in peacekeeping missions. By examining three case studies of peacekeeping missions this project investigates how far the role of military humanitarianism or authorised use of force by those on the ground was influenced by imperial understandings of humanitarianism and methods of governance. In this way, it will be asking how far colonial continuities thrived through the UN's peacekeeping policies. By looking at both multilateral and unilateral peacekeeping operations, this project hopes to investigate how far the United Nations (UN) and ex-colonial forces utilised peacekeeping missions to continue policies of state-building and clientelism. The case studies explored within this project will be:

1. ONUC - The UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo, 1960-1964
2. Shaba I and II - The French and Belgian led intervention in Zaire, 1977-1978
3. Operation Turquoise - The French-led peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, 1994

This project seeks to show that the history of the UN's state-building intentions, and the instrumentalisation of 'humanitarianism', started far before the 1990s. The power of the UN to utilise and harness (with authorised force) the knowledge and experience of ex-colonial forces in their peacekeeping missions is a dark area of history that remains unexplored. The relationship and history between the recipient and benefactor is intrinsic to understanding the power that humanitarian forces can exert over civilians - and therefore how crucial discussions of impunity are to broader questions of internationalism, colonial legacies and the developing trend of non-state actor global governance.