Book contents
- Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
- Human Rights in History
- Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Initialisms/Acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 Testing the Waters, 1945–1955
- 2 Reckoning with Suez, 1956–1959
- 3 Imperial Aspirations, 1960–1961
- 4 Obstructing Self-Determination, 1962–1963
- 5 From Stagnation to Insignificance, 1964–1971
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2023
- Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
- Human Rights in History
- Blue Helmet Bureaucrats
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Initialisms/Acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 Testing the Waters, 1945–1955
- 2 Reckoning with Suez, 1956–1959
- 3 Imperial Aspirations, 1960–1961
- 4 Obstructing Self-Determination, 1962–1963
- 5 From Stagnation to Insignificance, 1964–1971
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
The end of the ’spirit of Bandung’ in the late 1960s coincided with the passing and retirement of most of the key UN officials involved in the development of the peacekeeping project. By 1971, the Cold War obstructed the UN forums from authorising any new armed peacekeeping missions. Weaving together the contributions of previous chapters, the conclusion reiterates the how UN peacekeepers’ racial prejudices and technocratic logic perpetuated international hierarchies of power, colonial structures, and further suppressed the self-determination of peripheral or minority populations. It addresses the role of the UN peacekeeping missions in supporting - if not, openly enabling - the United States’ anticommunist aggression across the Global South during the decolonisation period. Rather than being passive in this process, however, this book has demonstrated how the UN officials agreed that anticommunism was a peacebuilding strategy for global security. Ultimately, peacekeepers’ unique role in the field shaped the formation of the post-colonial international order, embedding uneven hierarchies of race, expertise, and diplomatic power within newly independent nations and populations.
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- Blue Helmet BureaucratsUnited Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971, pp. 259 - 268Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023