Ad hoc coalitions in international conflict management

The global marketplace for peace operations is undergoing rapid change. Since 2014, the UN has been under escalating pressure, with no new missions deployed, funds cut by the US and other states and internal resistance to deploy peace operations. Concurrently, ad hoc coalitions have become the standard format for conflict management. Ad hoc coalitions are rapid, targeted and flexible, and can be very useful in, for instance, sequential deployments, but they need to be anchored in a long-term political-diplomatic approach. They enable like-minded states to come together to meet political objectives when institutional frameworks are too rigid or find themselves in stasis due to geopolitical or regional rivalries. The prominence of ad hoc coalitions and the parallel decline of UN-led action marks a fundamental shift in international conflict management. Ad hoc coalitions are part of a wider trend where international conflict management is moving towards a more loosely organised system, or what we label ‘conflict management à la carte’. AHCs leads to deinstitutionalisation, as they shift the focality and implementation of policy goals from established institutions to more transient forms of international cooperation, relegating global and regional institutions to a more normative role.

Speaker

Dr John Karlsrud is a Research Professor in the Research group on peace, conflict and development.

Karlsrud earned his PhD at the University of Warwick. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Internasjonal Politikk and Contemporary Security Policy. Karlsrud has been a Visiting Fulbright Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Peace Institute. 

Topics of particular interests are norm change, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and humanitarian issues. He previously served as Special Assistant to the United Nations Special Representative in Chad and as part of the UN Development Programme’s leadership programme LEAD.

He has worked in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Chad, Palestine (West Bank), Norway and USA, and conducted field research and shorter missions to Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Ukraine.

Registration closes two hours before the event begins