IR Theory Applied to the Role of Peacekeepers

In the realist perspective, a peacekeeper would have an additional meaning: that of the occupying soldier, which would stand as his or her primary role. Realists would see the involvement of foreign peacekeepers as mostly a tacticul move to increase one nation’s power over the nation in which peacekeepers were deployed and others, considering that the occupying nation would have the added power of the nation it would be occupying. The role of a peacekeeper solely as a peacekeeper would always be secondary, because national security is of utmost priority. Realists would see employing peacekeepers not as a means of gaining military advantage but also political advantage. If a nation accepts that it needs another nation’s help, it psychologically is placing itself in an inferior position to that nation. In realist terms, this means the world– the peacekeeping nation has the comparative advantage, which is all that matters. In such terms, the UN move to send a force of 26,000 troops to Sudan by the end of 2008 is a strategic maneuver on the part of Great Britain, for example, who is sending 5,000 of those troops.  Omar al Bashir would have good reason to worry about neo-colonialist sentiments.

Liberals would see employing peacekeepers as an exemplification of the power of international organizations, whereas realists would only pay attention to the fact that only specific nations would be deploying the troops. Conversely, the role of the peacekeeper would actually be to keep the peace in an unstable nation, and it would be at the benefit of the organization of stable, powerful nations. These nations would collaborate to deploy peacekeepers because they feel it a necessary act to protect human rights; not to gain power. Thus applied, the UN force in DRC, numbering over 17,000, is a move to calm the tensions in the eastern mining region. Liberals would hail triumph at the recent peace treaties signed by rogue militia and the government of the DRC, saying it was a product of the diplomacy of international organizations and stability brought by their troops.

As an example of idealists’ thought, Marxists would see the deployment of peacekeepers as a tactical move to not necessarily increase power but to increase wealth– a masked imperialistic occupancy of an unstable nation that can easily be taken advantage of by a more powerful, capitalistic one. Peacekeeping is just another method in which the higher class– the modern-day bourgeoisie– would manipulate the proletariat to insure more capital gain.

 Lastly, a constructivist would view the deployment of peacekeepers as a decision influenced by several things at once. The countries contributing to the peacekeeping force would be reacting from pressure on the sides of their allies and their people to do the morally correct thing by helping to stabilize a nation. They could also be reacting to indirect pressure from enemies to exert an image of strength and control.