Summary Of The Morphing Of Peacekeeping

Bayley’s article The Morphing of Peacekeeping: Competing Approaches to Public Safety, focused on how Peacekeeping missions seem to be headed towards using non-state actors to provide security more and national governments less. Bayley is very clear about the bottom line of why peace operations use non-state providers and that is people need to provide security. A peace operation cannot succeed where the civilians are not safe. Failed or failing states are unable to provide security in some cases. In other cases it's the state itself that is the cause of the conflict. Because of this peace operations have to look to other sources for security. Bayley suggests that as time goes on peace operations will increasingly depend on non-state providers

This is not saying that the State does not protect civilians, rather that the State is the only party that traditionally has the responsibility and power to protect its citizens. In situations where the state is unable to provide security other sources of security need to be considered. Non-state providers of security can provide that security and often do in their own areas of a failed state.

The second advantage Bayley states is that non-state actors are not part of the nation state. This is advantageous in places where the may be involved in the crisis. Non-state providers have the advantage of not being part of the government and being able to separate themselves from what may be considered the antagonists of the conflict. This makes it possible for them to be accepted as legitimate and actually provide security to an area.

Third non-state providers have the potential to act faster than state based security. Government based security can take a large amount of training and support until they are ready to actually provide security to the people. Non-state providers do not always have this handicap. A volunteer group of providers can be able to provide the security required to stop the civilian casualties in an area in a matter of

Because, they are not part of the state there is no politicking. Non-state providers do not have the same political agenda as state providers. At the end of the day the non-state providers are less likely to have a hidden or alternative agenda to providing security.

In countries where the nation state has collapsed there is going to be a power vacuum. In the article, Bayley points out; it is often the non-state providers that step in to fill this vacuum. In places where the state doesn't have the power to provide security the actual power holds should be looked to.

In cases where the state is not accepted at the local level non-state providers may be accepted as the legitimate power in their communities. Similar to the power vacuum argument there are places where the state is not looked at as a legitimate power source. Particularly in failed or failing states. In these cases the non-state providers can be viewed by locals as the legitimate source of power and government.

The international community is very cautious about taking risks and losing their own people. By using non-state providers for security instead of international providers this risk is lessened. This makes it more likely that other countries will continue to provide aide because there is less threat to their