Juggling Several Balls at Once

Abstract

Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.