ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the agency of peace operations. It contends that while peacekeeping by blue berets was largely a vision-less response to international crisis management, peace operations have been increasingly co-opted into
grand intentions to bring about liberal peace. This is a highly problematic enterprise, in terms of both meaning and practice. In part this expansiveness occurs in a permissive environment because peace missions are ill-defined, have various purposes (from preventing conflict to transforming war-torn societies), and are undertaken by a bewildering range of actors, from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to the African Union (AU). For Western states and the UN, the expansion of peace missions forms a key part of a broad project to confer liberal privileges on societies at war by implementing ‘responsibility to protect civilians’, ‘good governance’, ‘human security’ and ‘capacity-building’.
