Syllabus
Tentative course outline
1. Introduction: Course plan, syllabus, and requirements
2. Conceptualizing peacekeeping
3. Launching, running, financing a UN PKO
4. UN PKOs in the cold war era: Classical Peacekeeping
5. UN PKOs in the post-cold war era: Complex peacekeeping and peacebuilding
6. Principle critiques and lessons learned I
7. Principle critiques and lessons learned II
8. Researching, analyzing, evaluating UN PKOs
9. Student presentations of selected UN PKO
10. Student presentations of selected UN PKO
11. Non-UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding alternatives: Regional Organizations and Private Military Companies?
12. Peacekeeping and peacebuilding in the 21st century
Annotation
In the winter term, this course is taught by prof. Oldřich Bureš.
In the spring term of 2024, this course is not offered.
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The course covers the problematic of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UN PKOs), one of the hottest topics in international politics of the post-Cold War era. Peacekeeping operations have always placed high on the UN agenda and in the last decade, they have become the most visible of all UN activities. They have also expanded substantially in terms of their scope and their mandates nowadays often include various peacebuilding activities. We will cover the following topics: definitions, taxonomies, history, principles and legal framework of UN PKOs, principal critiques of UN PKOs in the post-cold war era, research and analysis of the success of UN PKOs operations in resolving contemporary conflicts, current and future trends in UN PKOs, other Conflict Resolution methods available to the United Nations. Since UN is not the only actor involved in either peacekeeping or peacebuilding, we will also explore non-United Nations operations.