The Human Dynamics of Security Infrastructures

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

This project explores what ethical and cultural factors drive the long-term stability of security infrastructures in post-conflict settings. Peacekeeping has become the signal means of conflict mitigation in the world, and it has recently undergone radical shifts. No longer just keepers of signed peace agreements, peacekeepers today are asked to enforce and protect amid ongoing hostilities. How do peacekeepers develop ethical compasses to navigate a work landscape that has such divergent moral signposts? Peacekeepers deployed with the mandate of civilian protection are daily confronted with situations in which their roles and authorities are ambiguous. Protection has become the ideal, intended to make peacekeeping an expression of human solidarity, but stakeholders and peacekeepers argue vehemently over what it entails. Why a person might put on a uniform and fight for one's country or kith, or for one's survival, has by now been well-plumbed. But we have little understanding of motivates the ethical decisions that underlie peacekeeping missions, especially since there is such disagreement as to whether these goals are best achieved through bellicose means. How do peacekeepers make decisions in carrying out their work? What happens when they are tested by situations that stress their moral claims? Findings will be disseminated to organizations and individuals that influence policy debates related to peacekeeping and conflict resolution. The project also provides training for undergraduate and graduate students in methods of rigorous, scientific data collection and analysis, and broadens the participation of groups traditionally underrepresented in science. It also improves scientific infrastructure through international scientific collaboration. Dr. Louisa Lombard of Yale University examines how peacekeepers make ethical decisions, and navigate situations where formal policies stress moral and ethical claims. To understand the domains that span the psychological, the social, the situational, and the materiality of ethics and decision-making in a hierarchical context, this project uses participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, primarily based in peacekeeping training and post-deployment centers as well as in several countries to which peacekeepers are deployed. Sites are selected for their ability to provide a full contrastive range of ethical decision-making frameworks. She follows Rwandan peacekeepers, known among peacekeepers as professional but also willing to use force, through their training and post-training deployments. Rwanda, site of the world's most famous failure of peacekeeping, has in the 23 years since its genocide publicly vaunted its protection-based vision for peacekeeping. The data collected from in the Rwandan field research experiences will be analyzed and compared against data collected from interviews with Indian peacekeepers, who have been involved in peacekeeping for far longer and are far more critical of aggressive peacekeeping. The project will make important contributions to anthropological and broader scientific theories of morality, humanitarianism, and ethics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.