Strategic Communications for Peace Operations: The African Union’s Information War Against al-Shabaab

IF 0.6 Q3 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Stability-International Journal of Security and Development Pub Date : 2018-02-06 DOI:10.5334/STA.606

Paul D. Williams

引用次数: 17

Abstract

Despite widespread agreement that effective strategic communications are a necessary part of complex peace operations, many missions struggle to generate relevant capabilities and implement effective campaigns. This article analyzes the experiences of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as a case study of this problem. Specifically, it examines how the United Nations (UN) tried to fill the gap by hiring a consortium of private firms known as the AU-UN Information Support Team (IST) to wage a strategic communications campaign against al-Shabaab. The IST’s goal was to drive, as well as communicate, AMISOM’s success, improve the mission’s media presence, and develop a communications strategy. The IST played an innovative and important function for AMISOM but suffered from several significant challenges that reduced its effectiveness. The conclusion therefore identifies four main lessons from AMISOM’s experiences that could improve strategic communications for peace operations.

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和平行动的战略传播:非洲联盟对青年党的信息战

尽管普遍认为有效的战略传播是复杂和平行动的必要组成部分，但许多特派团仍难以产生相关能力并执行有效的运动。本文分析了非洲联盟驻索马里特派团(AMISOM)的经验，作为这一问题的案例研究。具体来说，它考察了联合国(UN)如何试图通过雇用一个名为非盟-联合国信息支持小组(IST)的私营公司财团来填补这一空白，以发动一场针对青年党的战略传播运动。IST的目标是推动非索特派团的成功，并与之沟通，改善特派团的媒体存在，并制定沟通战略。技术支助团为非索特派团发挥了创新和重要的职能，但受到若干重大挑战的影响，降低了其效力。因此，本结论从非索特派团的经验中确定了可以改善和平行动战略沟通的四个主要教训。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Stability-International Journal of Security and Development INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

11 weeks

期刊介绍： Stability: International Journal of Security & Development is a fundamentally new kind of journal. Open-access, it publishes research quickly and free of charge in order to have a maximal impact upon policy and practice communities. It fills a crucial niche. Despite the allocation of significant policy attention and financial resources to a perceived relationship between development assistance, security and stability, a solid evidence base is still lacking. Research in this area, while growing rapidly, is scattered across journals focused upon broader topics such as international development, international relations and security studies. Accordingly, Stability''s objective is to: Foster an accessible and rigorous evidence base, clearly communicated and widely disseminated, to guide future thinking, policymaking and practice concerning communities and states experiencing widespread violence and conflict. The journal will accept submissions from a wide variety of disciplines, including development studies, international relations, politics, economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and history, among others. In addition to focusing upon large-scale armed conflict and insurgencies, Stability will address the challenge posed by local and regional violence within ostensibly stable settings such as Mexico, Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and elsewhere.