Managing World Order: United Nations Peace Operations and the Security Agenda (Library of International Relations (Numbered))

273 Pages·2009·1.79 MB·English

by  Richard Kareem Al-Qaq

M W O
ANAGING ORLD RDER
Richard Al-Qaq holds a PhD in Politics from the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Between 2002 and 2007,
Dr. Al-Qaq taught post-graduate International Politics at the Centre for
International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS. He currently lives in Brazil,
where he writes and consults on UN peacekeeping and UN reform.
MANAGING
WORLD ORDER
United Nations Peace Operations
and the Security Agenda
Richard Kareem Al-Qaq
Tauris Academic Studies
LONDON • NEW YORK
Published in 2009 by Tauris Academic Studies,
an imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
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In the United States of America and in Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division
of St Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © 2009 Richard Kareem Al-Qaq
The right of Richard Kareem Al-Qaq to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been
asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof,
may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
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Library of International Relations 40
ISBN 978 1 84511 580 7
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card: available
Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press India Ltd
Camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author
For Stephanie & Naseem

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1. United Nations Peace Operations and World Order:
A reappraisal of purposes and practices, 1948–87 13
2. Defining the Work of the United Nations: From
the challenge of third world activism to a resurgent
western security agenda 35
3. Reorienting the United Nations after the Cold War:
The advance of peace operations 49
4. United Nations Misadventures in Somalia: Militarised
liberal internationalism in the early 1990s 70
5. Post-Colonial Rwanda and United Nations Conveyance
Operations: From trusteeship to regime change 97
6. Manufacturing Peace in Angola: The Lusaka Protocols
and the standard of UN peace operations 121
7. Managing World Order on the Periphery 149
Notes 174
Bibliography 230
Index 251

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The greater part of the research, collaboration and substantive writing for
this monograph was done at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London, for a doctoral thesis. To a large extent
therefore many of my acknowledgements and intellectual debts relate to this
period, where I had the support and encouragement of friends, family and
colleagues. First and foremost, Nick and Pamela have spent many hours, dare
I say days, reading through the text, providing comments, corrections and
edits. As important, they have constantly provided moral support at critical
moments of the manuscript’s progression and shown unfl inching belief in
the ‘cause’. My family more generally, Anis, Sigrid, Janna, Makram, Adam
and Inas have always shown their solidarity and provided many happy and
welcome distractions. In the UN in New York, the Division for Palestinian
Rights provided the ideal setting to observe the various transformations in
orientation that the world body has been undergoing since the collapse of the
Second World and, through the example of its continued existence and refusal
to redefi ne the parameters of the legitimate rights of Palestinians, especially
refugees in the wider region, practically demonstrated how resistance from
within the UN is still possible, even if diffi cult. Following and working
closely with the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN during
a diffi cult time in the autumn of 2000 showed from another angle—that
of consultative organs—how it is possible for the staff of a small observer
mission to take on the chancelleries of materially mighty UN member-states,
and occasionally emerge victorious.
At SOAS, the Department of Politics and International Studies proved
to be a challenging intellectual environment, where I learnt from Stephen
Hopgood and Mark Laffey to question many of the basic orthodoxies
of international relations. Mark Laffey especially helped me reassess the