Changing the Agenda: Assessing the Evolution of the Peacebuilding Commission
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The Peacebuilding Commission was created in 2005 to close an institutional gap in the UN. It was designed as a member-state body that would work to prevent catastrophic failure and also address what should be done once a crisis had been averted or violent conflict had come to an end. While the literature provides some assessment of the PBC’s impact in individual cases or areas, it has failed to evaluate the impact of the 2015 reform effort, which caused to significant and fundamental shift in the PBC’s operation. This thesis evaluates how this shift in operations changed both the form and substance of PBC engagement, examining both broad trends in the PBC’s agenda and work and its impact in specific contexts, using the cases of Liberia and Burkina Faso. It finds a pattern of broader-but-shallower engagement, with a consistently expanding agenda that covers a broader range of cases in addition to more thematic work, but less investment and ultimately less impact in individual cases. The post-2015 format of the PBC was less able to provide the sustained, high-investment, and long-term engagement that could support a strategic or advisory role or encourage political buy-in. However, the lighter form of engagement did allow the PBC to cover a greater range of cases and topics, and in “easier” cases a higher-investment form of engagement was likely not as necessary. Still, these findings have implications for continuing efforts to reform and improve the PBC, particularly given the number of difficult and complex cases currently on the agenda.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Publication date | June 21, 2023 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Whitley, Sorcha |
|---|---|
| Advisor | Stedman, Stephen |
Subjects
| Subject | United Nations |
|---|---|
| Subject | United Nations Peacebuilding Commission |
| Subject | Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Whitley, S. (2023). Changing the Agenda: Assessing the Evolution of the Peacebuilding Commission. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/vr967xk4118. https://doi.org/10.25740/vr967xk4118.
Collection
Stanford University, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. (CDDRL)
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- Contact
- sapwhitley@gmail.com
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