National security strategies, emergent powers and ‘sustaining peace'
This paper is an output of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PEACEREP) programme.
Abstract
Findings:
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Textual analysis of national security strategy and defence white paper documents reveals different patterns of discursive investment in peace-related practices.
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Countries ranked “partly free”, and “not free” by Freedom House use more peace terminology than countries ranked “free”.
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Traditional UN peacekeeping has greater discursive investment from larger contributing countries.
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More recently developed UN peacebuilding practices have greater support from smaller Western European countries.
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Russia is not discursively invested in any UN-centred peace practice.
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There are regional clusters of similarity in security and defence documents, with geographical proximity having more of an effect than political similarity.
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Within substantive mentions of “peacebuilding”, there are Western/non-Western and Global North/Global South splits.
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There is a negative correlation between ODA (Official Development Assistance) status and public security/defence document production: the poorer a country is, the less likely it is to produce a document.
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Using Freedom House rankings, “free” counties are more likely to produce public security/defence documents than “partly free” and “not free” countries.
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The range of peace terminology in these documents is huge, with 249 different pairings of “peace” with others terms identified.
This paper is an output of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PEACEREP) programme.
Citation
Neal, A., Wilson, L. and Gardner, R. National Security Strategies, Emergent Powers and ‘Sustaining Peace’. (PeaceRep Report: Global Transitions Series). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh 2022
Links
National security strategies, emergent powers and ‘sustaining peace’