Peace Operations in the Francophone World

This book critically examines peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention, and peace operation practices and experiences in Francophone spaces.

There are relatively few analyses that seriously study the specificity of peacebuilding activities in Francophone spaces. Such analyses are found in French publications, but these seem to only very rarely transfer or appear in English-language debates and publications. The context of Francophone Africa, in particular, is one that is typically left unexplored in peacebuilding deliberations, despite the fact that almost half of all peacekeepers are deployed or were deployed there in the last decade. It is a context that deserves more serious attention, if only because it provides a fertile ground to explore the key questions raised in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature. For instance, in 2002 a French operation (Licorne) was created and in 2003 a UN force was deployed in Côte d'Ivoire alongside the French force there.

This book therefore seeks (1) to fill a clear gap in the literature; (2) to explore whether peacebuilding and peace operations in the Francophone spaces have any 'exceptional' characteristics when compared to those carried out in other parts of the world; and (3) to assess whether an analysis of peace operations in Francophone spaces can make a specific or original contribution to wider international debates about peacebuilding and peace operations.

This book will of much interest to students of peacekeeping, peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, African politics, security studies and IR in general.