糖心TV

Wednesday 8 March, 3-4.30pm

Dr Chiara Ruffa (Swedish Defence University)

Barefoot soldiers and skiing nations? Incoherence and coping strategies in the UN mission in Mali (with Bas Rietjens)

Pursuing coherence is a core objective in most military interventions and the lack thereof is often mentioned when criticizing them. To further the debate on peace operations, this project explores incoherence and its effects at the individual level among peacekeepers deployed within the ongoing UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA. We draw upon a large empirical dataset containing more than 120 semi-structured interviews, observations on the ground and participation in pre-deployment exercises as well as evaluation sessions. Building on De Coning and Friis, we distinguish among four levels of coherence: intra-agency (i.e. coherence within an individual organization), inter-agency (coherence between different organizations), whole-of-government (coherence between different government agencies of a country) and internal-external (coherence between the host nation and international actors). The analysis reveals a striking level of incoherence at each of the levels. Our empirical analysis allows to inductively trace the consequences of incoherence by studying what we call 'the coping strategies' put in place by members involved in the operation. We distinguish between two kinds of coping strategies. First, we focus on ‘stove-piping’, which entailed a strengthened narrow focus. Second, we focus on meaning-making mechanisms, understood as the daily practice of making sense of such incoherence. With this project, we hope to advance ongoing debates on the conduct of peace operations, by connecting the debate on the composition of peace operations with existing scholarship on coping strategies in military sociology.

S2.77 (Social Sciences Building)