The Politics of Global Governance in UN Peacekeeping

This article examines the allocation of roles and responsibilities in the construction of UN peacekeeping. The case is made that decision making in UN peacekeeping is not only fragmented between various states and institutional actors, but also critically lopsided, with an uneven distribution of responsibilities and the majority of political, military and strategic risks falling upon those countries least able to bear them – poor and weak states. States that hold decision-making power are not the states that have to implement those decisions. The article concludes by arguing that this governance structure is not a symptom of organizational dysfunction, but that it serves a political function by allowing influence to be wielded without risk.