External publications

(Re)generating peacekeeping authority: the Brahimi Process

Weinlich, Silke
External Publications (2012)

in: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 6 (3), 257-277

Information

Authority is considered to be the main source of agency and influence of international organizations. This article argues that authority is a volatile and contested good that might be successfully manipulated by international organizations themselves. Drawing on the case of UN peacekeeping reforms at the beginning of the new century, it identifies three behavioural patterns—adding authority from outside; overacting; mandate stretching—that helped the UN Secretariat to regain peacekeeping authority that the organization had lost at the end of the 1990s.