Peace in Liberia? : A status quo evaluation of United Nations peacekeeping five years later.

Abstract: Discussions about the utility of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has been ongoing since its emergence in the late 1940s, and scholars have studied different peacekeeping missions from various perspectives. However, there is a gap in the research when it comes to evaluating the state of peace in countries that have experienced successful UN peacekeeping missions a few years after the mission is finished. The UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia (UNMIL) was deemed a success when it was finished. For that reason, this study investigates the state of peace in Liberia five years after the UN peacekeeping mission handed overall security-related responsibilities to the Liberian government in 2016. The state of peace in Liberia today will be analyzed using Johan Galtung’s definition of peace and violence. This study has been conducted as a qualitative desk and case study and has followed abductive reasoning. The data used in this study have been analyzed through text analysis. Findings show that the UN indeed succeeded in reaching their goals for the mission. But, when applying Galtung’s definition of peace and violence it is clear that the goals set by the UN can be categorized as negative peace, which means the absence of direct violence. Positive peace however, which means the absence of direct, structural and cultural violence, has not yet been achieved since there is still high levels of corruption and discrimination in the country. The conclusion includes a discussion about whether or not the UN can and/or shall aim for positive peace, or if negative peace is a realistic goal and then hand the process of achieving higher levels of positive peace to the host country, in this case Liberia.