DIVUNPKO · Diversity in the United Nations Peacekeeping Bureaucracy

Diversity in the United Nations Peacekeeping Bureaucracy (DIVUNPKO) addresses two critical issues. On the one hand, geographicaldiversity is a peculiarity of International Organizations’ staff like the United Nations (UN) and the European Union. Yet, in theliterature, we have little knowledge about the impacts of staff diversity on the functioning of International Organizations (IOs). On theother hand, scholars have started to acknowledge the importance of diversity in peacekeeping operations but have studied it only formilitary staff. The present project fills these gaps by examining the impact of staff geographical diversity in the case of peacekeeping operations, the main tool of the UN for maintaining international peace and security. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective by bridgingdiversity research in Public Administration and the literature on IOs and peacekeeping in International Relations. This two-year projecthas three objectives: (1) to collect socio-demographic data on civilian staff working in UN peacekeeping operations, 2) to develop an analytical framework to study diversity effects within IOs, and (3) to examine empirically the effects of geographical diversity among civilian peacekeepers along three dimensions: throughput, output and legitimacy. This project will make key contributions to the research on peacekeeping, international bureaucracies, and diversity. At the societal level, this project hopes to impact the work of international civilian missions and sensitize the public to issues of diversity in public organizations more broadly.