here - Center on International Cooperation - New York University

PrefaceThe <strong>Center</strong> on International Cooperation(CIC) is committed to expandingand deepening the analysis ofmultilateral security instruments,ranging from sanctions to post-conflictpeace-building. Our work - not leastour Annual Review of Global PeaceOperations series, established in 2006– illuminates the scale, complexity anddiversity of international interventionsin states and regions at risk of conflict.It is inevitable that some cases, suchas Afghanistan, receive more dayto-dayattention than others. Butto understand the contribution ofmultilateral institutions to internationalsecurity, it is necessary to map the muchwider web of activities undertaken bythe UN and other global and regionalorganizations.What can we learn from thesemapping exercises? This simple butimportant fact: “conflict and cooperationamong states on matters of peaceand security have been increasinglymanaged, regulated, or implementedby and through multilateral securityinstitutions.” 1 Yet a great deal ofacademic literature on internationalcooperation ignores these operationalphenomena. Policy-makers oscillatebetween searching for “off the shelf ”conflict management tools at the UNand other institutions and announcinginitiatives to transform those institutions– often repeating previous,forgotten experiments.A fuller, more realistic understandingof what international institutions aredoing today – and what they havedone, well or badly, in the past – is aprerequisite for managing more effectivereforms in future.This Review of Political Missions isCIC’s first attempt to map a poorlyunderstoodbut very widespread formof multilateral engagement in conflictaffected(or at risk) areas. It shedslight on the work of primarily civilianmissions (occasionally buttressed bysmall numbers of military monitorsand policemen) in mediating conflicts,devising and monitoring peace agreementsand promoting good governanceworldwide. Many of these missionsexist in a gray area between large-scalemilitary peacekeeping and more traditionaldevelopment aid and humanrights monitoring. The variety of additionaltasks of the missions we analyze– from helping re-house displaced personsand refugees to advising on thedestruction of out-of-date armaments– is remarkable. But as Ian Johnstonenotes in his thematic essay, all are insome way involved directly or tangentiallyin “political process management.”This may sound technocratic.But as Johnstone shows – and CIChas underlined in a series of reportspublished in recent years – successfulpolitical processes are essential tocreating sustainable peace. 2Ian Martin has learned this thehard way. As he argues in his openingessay to this Review, all peacexi