United Nations, Protection, and the securitization of violence against civilians : A critical security analysis of the politics of protection

Abstract

This master’s thesis examines how violence against civilians has become a matter of international peace and security for the United Nations (UN), how the UN protects civilians and what social and political implications does this protection enterprise entail.

The matter is of interest because civilian protection has risen from relative obscurity into prominence in the UN’s international peace and security agenda. Civilian protection is a matter of controversy, however, because it raises the thorny issues of sovereign integrity, use of force and impartiality, not to mention that some of the most painful peacekeeping experiences in the history of United Nations are related to violence against civilians. It is deeply political.

The thesis asserts that violence against civilians has been made a matter of security. With this premise as its point of departure, the thesis employs a modified theory of securitization to examine how this status quo came to be. With the theory, the thesis produces an analytical narrative on how Protection of civilians, as defined and implemented by the UN, has recast violence against civilians as a matter of security. Under scrutiny are the discourses, practices and rationales of protection.

The analyses show how the experiences in the field led to the securitization of violence against civilians. The peacekeeping practices developed as a result of the decades of experience have been incorporated into the ensemble of discourses and practices of United Nations Protection of Civilians. They expand the international peace and security agenda into the domestic sphere. Similarly, analysis of the UN discourse on protection of civilians shows who the complexity of violence against civilians serve as a premise for the comprehensive protection programme formulated under the Protection of Civilians moniker. The discourse serves to rationalize the previously developed practices.