Reinforcing Failure : Understanding the UN's RelentlessPursuit of an Elusive Liberal Peace

Since the end of the Cold War, UN peace operations havebeen built on the assumption thatliberal democracies are less likely to go to war with eachother or descend into civil war. The UN's track record withliberal peacebuilding over the years has been decidedlymixed, leading scholars and policy makers alike toconclude that the enterprise is deeply flawed. Yet despitemounting evidence of its limits, serious alternatives to theUN's favored, liberal peace-building approach are yet toemerge.Why is it that the UN constantly pursues the same failedpeacekeeping policies even when the record of success isso poor? My research project tries to address this puzzle byexamining the complex deliberations that determine whattypes of tasks are included in the mandates of UN peaceoperations. Drawing on a detailed case study analysis of the UN'speace operations in Haiti and the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, this project seeks to test rival theories about thefactors responsible for the repeated inclusion of liberalpeacebuilding tasks in their mandates, regardless ofcircumstances on the ground. In doing so, it seeks toadvance research onthe UN as an international organization by assessing therelative importance of member stateinterests and the UN's organizational culture in explainingwhy tasks firmly rooted in the discourse of liberal peacehave endured, despite repeated setbacks in the field.