PhD Projects

The Mandating of UN Peace Operations

by Franziska Sandt, M.A.

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Manuel Fröhlich; Prof. Dr. Christian Kreuder-Sonnen

The question of whether national interests or even self-regarding motives of the United Nations itself overlay the altruistic peace concept of the organization, broadly reflects the research interest of this dissertation project.

At first glance, peace operations seem to be a functionalist service to ensure international peace and security. But the process behind their mandate is much more complex. The conflict landscape has changed significantly and the new requirements entail an adapted mandate for UN peace operations. Nevertheless, power and influence play a major role. Both the member states and the organization itself endeavor to assert their own interests, regardless of whether they pursue a normative or power-based approach.

First, the concept of multidimensional peace missions is presented by means of a quantitative large-N content analysis. This is specified using the example of resolutions of UN peace operations and possible trends in mandates regarding current crisis situations. Second, the international work that is done behind this comprehensive peacekeeping is examined. On the basis of a qualitative analysis using process tracing, it is considered which influencing factors are decisive and which causal interrelationship exists between them. Therefore, the interests of the organization itself (organization-driven) and those of its member states (member state-driven) are in focus.

This research project sheds light on the emergence, character and intention of the resolutions of multidimensional peace operations and analyzes the motivations behind the differentiation of the UN mandates. Ultimately, this project contributes to a deeper understanding of international security and development.

by Philip M. Tantow, M.A.

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Christian Kreuder-Sonnen

Transboundary crises have profound effects on the distribution of authority in global governance. Yet, the direction in which authority shifts varies, depicting a striking empirical puzzle: The 2007/08 Global Financial Crisis led to an internationalization of authority indicated by the strengthening of multiple international organizations (IOs) including the International Monetary Fund and to an informalization of authority with the emergence of the Group of Twenty as the new orchestrator of global financial governance. The 2015 European Migration Crisis showed a renationalization of authority as European Union (EU) member states reinstated border controls and ceased to comply with EU asylum regulations. In the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic, the hesitation by the World Health Organization as the focal IO in global health governance attracted other IOs including the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration to fill the governance gap, which led to further diffusion of authority within the field. Each of these cases exemplifies crisis-induced shifts of authority in different directions. How can this variance in the direction of crisis-induced authority shifts be explained? This dissertation addresses this research question by investigating authority shifts in transboundary crises as a phenomenon that has so far been overlooked in the academic debate. Three types of crisis-induced authority shifts are analyzed: renationalization, informalization, and diffusion of authority. The dissertation employs an original framework which deduces hypotheses from different strands of institutionalist theorizing. The empirical analysis compares cases from the spheres of global financial governance, global migration governance, and global health governance, providing first insights into authority shifts in transboundary crises.

Between Authoritarian Liberalism and the Democratic Welfare State – Shifts in the European Union’s Political-Economic Order

by Ann-Kristin Goldapp, M.A.

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Christian Kreuder-Sonnen

The dissertation examines how the European Union’s decision-making processes and its chosen economic policy have changed over the last decade. In order to capture changes to the EU’s political-economic order, EU policy-making during the euro crisis and the Covid-19 crisis are examined. For this purpose, an analytical framework is developed that serves as a basis for the analysis of various EU crisis programs. This framework allows to examine whether the EU’s decision-making processes were rather democratic or authoritarian and whether the chosen economic policy was more neoliberal or social in nature. In the second part of the thesis, a critical discourse analysis is applied to identify and highlight reasons for changes in EU policy-making. The dissertation’s contribution to the field lies in the comprehensive presentation and explanation of changes in the EU’s political-economic order over the years. Driving factors of such change are identified and can be used both to explain European Union politics and to make sense of the policy-making of other transnational organizations.