Both the theoretical and practical roots of contemporary preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking trace back to the League of Nations. Starting with the Vilna dispute in 1920, the League organised collective action on several occasions, achieving varying degrees of success in different parts of the world. Although the League was ultimately unsuccessful in its overarching objective of preventing another global conflict, its results in preventing local conflicts from erupting or escalating have been unduly neglected. Furthermore, although a theoretical framework for preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking would not be developed until many decades after the League had dissolved, its basic contours may be found already in the work and reflections of the organisation’s bodies and functionaries. This chapter analyses the League’s pioneering work in an attempt to present the organisation’s own contribution and better understand these phenomena in light of their early iterations.

This chapter is a study of India’s involvement in the Korean War, particularly in the later stages of that war and in bringing it to a close through the successful negotiation of an armistice agreement. The period under review is 1950–1953. The Korean War is an insightful case study because it combines a study of the beginnings of Indian diplomacy at the UN with Nehru’s idea of Asia.

Chapter 5 discusses the Congo Crisis, one where India was involved between 1960 and 1963. The contention in this chapter is that India’s involvement in the crisis, particularly in the form of heavy military support to the UN, was rooted in Nehru’s idea of Africa. The advent of peacekeeping and the UN’s reliance on India’s troop contribution for its continued survival and success in the Congo exposed India to rapid alienation from African member-states and cost Indian lives on the ground. In turn, this exposed Nehru’s administration and foreign policy to criticism from within the domestic realm in India. The crisis was soon overshadowed by border problems with the Chinese and the eventual Sino-Indian War of 1962, but the Congo Crisis shows how India chose to strengthen the UN by military means, in complete contradiction of its stated position a decade earlier.

Chapter 4 discusses the year 1956 as bringing together two crises that coincided in time almost to the hour but were starkly different in their causes and consequences. These are the Suez Canal Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution. India was intimately involved with both in very different ways. On the one hand, in the Suez Canal Crisis, India assumed again the mediatory role so well constructed during the Korean War. The anti-colonial fervour of the crisis and India’s support of the Egyptian cause did not impede India from mediating with both sides and contributing substantially to the closing of the crisis. On the other hand, in the case of Hungary, Nehru exposed himself to severe criticism, both international and domestic, for his delayed and ambiguous response to Soviet actions in suppressing the revolution. Both these events are discussed in conjunction as an attempt to read them as a discursive moment in which non-alignment as an approach to world politics encountered its first challenge and Nehru responded through an ambiguously constructed idea of Europe.

Chapter 9 concludes the book by highlighting implications that are relevant for academic researchers as well as policymakers. The book’s findings suggest at least three areas for future research. First, a more comprehensive analysis of the sources of perceptions of bias in conflict settings would productively inform scholarship and practice. Second, future work should investigate the conditions under which communal peace aggregates up to the national level. Third, scholars should examine whether governments and their partners succeed in leveraging gains from localized peace enforcement into states with robust institutions. The book also has two important implications for the practice of peacekeeping. First, given the importance of perceptions, policymakers must ensure that peacekeepers remain impartial. International actors perceived by local populations as relatively impartial are much more effective at promoting intergroup cooperation and facilitating the peaceful resolution of communal disputes. Second, given that communal peace in the analysis relies so heavily on the presence of UN peacekeepers, the international community must consider how to design peaceful transitions out of PKOs.

This chapter applies localized peace enforcement theory to a subnational analysis of patterns of dispute escalation in Mali. In order to investigate whether the previous chapters’ experimental findings generalize to real-world operations, the chapter presents the results of two analyses of UN peacekeeping efforts to prevent the onset of communal violence in the central Malian region of Mopti. The first study leverages a geographic regression discontinuity design to compare dispute escalation on either side of the Burkina Faso–Mali border. The border splits similar areas into those “treated” with UN peacekeeping patrols (on the Mali side) and “control” areas without peacekeeping (on the Burkina Faso side). The findings indicate that peacekeeping reduces the likelihood of communal violence. The second study delves deeper into the data with an analysis of UN peacekeepers from different countries deployed to the same regions of Mali and uncovers further evidence in line with the predictions of the theory. Rather than comparing UN peacekeeping in countries with against those without a peacekeeping operation, the study compares UN peacekeepers from different contributing countries – Togo and Senegal – deployed to the same area.

This introductory chapter explains the book’s motivating puzzles and outlines its theoretical and empirical strategies. The book focuses on local-level peacekeeping operations designed explicitly to prevent communal violence. It argues that deploying UN peacekeepers to fragile settings fundamentally changes the structural incentives facing communities in conflict. Scholars typically pinpoint the UN’s success at the negotiating table: peacekeepers help armed group leaders make lasting agreements that stabilize conflict settings from the top down. Yet such negotiations seem unable to prevent communal violence in places as diverse as South Sudan in East Africa, Mali in West Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa. This book shifts the analytical lens to the local level to investigate the conditions under which peacekeepers successfully build peace from the bottom up. The book’s main argument is that UN peacekeepers succeed when local populations perceive them to be relatively impartial enforcers who are unconnected to the country of deployment, the conflict, and the parties to the dispute. Impartial peacekeepers convince all parties that they will punish those who escalate communal disputes regardless of their identity, which increases communities’ willingness to cooperate without the fear of violence.

Utilizing the theoretical framework of transnational legal orders (TLOs), this chapter treats two master questions in global governance: What are the limits to the power of the UN Security Council? Can rule-of-law (ROL) norms constrain UNSC powers? First, we outline a research design with emphasis on its documentary and unique internal empirical sources. Second, we sketch an interpretive narrative of UNSC engagement from the early 1990s to the present with ROL in three areas of UNSC action: peacekeeping, sanctions, and force. Third, we offer a new conceptual approach by proposing that ROL in the UNSC manifests itself in three dimensions: discourse, procedure (or rules), and structures. These dimensions come into play both internally, within the UNSC itself, and externally, in ROL institution-building in and between states, as well as in post-conflict zones, with a rather gray area between (e.g., when the UN peacekeeping missions are themselves subject to ROL oversight for the behavior of their personnel). Fourth, we examine the emergence of micro-TLOs under construction within the UNSC itself. We conclude with reflections on the potential for empowering elected members of the UNSC and weaker states in the UN to press ROL norms on the UNSC as a springboard for ROL global governance via the UNSC.

This chapter examines local-level peacekeeping operations in a cross-national context. The analysis draws on a dataset of nearly 400,000 georeferenced troop deployments in sub-Saharan Africa from 1999 to 2019. Consistent with the theory’s predictions, it demonstrates that increases in the number of peacekeeping troops deployed to local communities are strongly positively associated with decreases in the onset of communal violence. Since cross-national data of this sort cannot directly measure local perceptions of peacekeepers cross-nationally, the study tallies the number of peacekeepers from former colonial powers and neighboring countries deployed to each area as a proxy for perceptions of bias. The patterns further vary in ways that support the logic of localized peace enforcement theory. Specifically, the evidence shows that there is no relationship between the deployment of these two types of peacekeepers and levels of communal violence. The analyses presented in the chapter also detect a strong negative association between all other types of peacekeepers, likely to be perceived as impartial, and the onset of communal violence.

The concluding chapter wraps up the various arguments and pieces of evidence presented in this book in favor of our peace formula. Overall, the first take-home message to be highlighted is the need for smart idealism – as neither the cold-hearted egotist nor the naïve idealist will be able to curb conflict. Secondly, it is again stressed which concrete policies are key to making a difference, creating a synthesis of the various points of the previous chapters. In particular, we emphasize the key role of a democratic voice, security warranties, promoting productive work, fostering trust and reconciliation, accelerating a well-managed green energy transition and stepping up international coordination across a variety of issues. The final point is that since we are all affected by conflict, we should all be part of the solution. It turns out that several studies have found that pressure from the public opinion matters, both in the implementation of policies and in preventing atrocities. There is a job to be done, so let us work together to make a change.

As shown in this chapter, state capacity and security warranties are further key factors in the peace formula. In particular, besides certain institutional features, the overall strength of the state is a major determinant of political stability, as illustrated by examples and recent research on Iraq, Somalia, Niger and the origins of the Mafia in southern Italy. Drawing on cutting-edge studies, it is argued that being feared (by extremist groups) may be more important than being loved (by the population at large). In order to win the hearts and minds of the population, it is essential that first public safety is guaranteed and that basic services are delivered efficiently. This is easier said than done. It is shown that when foreign military aid aims at capacity building, it often backfires. In contrast, UN peacekeeping troops have been demonstrated to play a key role. We end this chapter by emphasizing the several domestic factors that can help the building of lasting state capacity, with a special emphasis on well-designed welfare programs such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.