0 about the author

A.
CONTINUUM THEORY 
The early 1990's were shaken by debates over the UN's ability to adapt its peacekeeping 
doctrine to deployment conditions that radically differed from those of first generation operations. 
Specifically, the debates centered on the issue of consent and the use of force and were dominated 
by the “continuum theory”. The theory considered the different modalities of third party 
intervention in a conflict as part of a strategic continuum. From deploying unarmed military 
observers to armed peace enforcement troops, this continuum rests on simple logic; the farther a 
deployment's basic conditions are from those of traditional peacekeeping, the more a force would 
require access to a broader range of military means and the option to use force. 
The Somali operation however showed the lapses in this theory by illustrating that there 
are situations whereby some missions need to be converted from a peace enforcement operation 
to a peacekeeping operation (the fom1er is fundamentally coercive in nature while
 
the later is 
cooperative). This in itself poses a number of political problems given the different nature of each. 
Charles Dobbie put forward the concept of "wider peacekeeping" which differentiates between the 
various levels of consent and argues that the quality of consent must be measured at two different 
levels; first at the political level (consisting of a political hierarchy in a warring state or a military 
command in a non-state armed force) and secondly at the operational level (i.e. the level of local 
command) 
B. 
 WORLD POLITY THEORY 
World polity scholars see the entire world “as a single society and argue that there is a 
distinct global culture that is made up of the formal and informal rules of international social life. 
The global culture defines who the principal actors in world politics should be, how they should 
organize themselves internally, and how they should behave. 

---

90 
Global culture is seen to shape the character of peacekeeping in fundamental ways -
peacekeeping Agencies are predisposed to develop and implement strategies that are in line with 
the norms of the global culture. World polity theorists argue that the mandate and procedures of 
particular operations emerge from negotiations among interested parties. Furthermore, the 
officials within peacekeeping Agencies help to define mandates by advising governments on the 
procedures and strategies that have worked well in previous missions. The design and conduct of 
peacekeeping missions reflect not only the interests of key parties and lessons from previous 
mission, but also the prevailing norms of global culture which legitimize certain kinds of 
peacekeeping policies and delegitimizes others. 
James March and John Olsen discussed two different "logics of action" by which political 
actors define goals and decide how to behave: 
i.
The logic of effectiveness - that political actors are rational utility maximizers who select 
strategies that are most likely to achieve a desired end 
ii.
The logic of appropriateness - that political actors choose their strategy based on existing 
norms of proper conduct (they seek to do the right thing in a given social context)