This research aimed at providing contextualized insight into the privatization of the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo and to build explanations about the causes of privatization within this case with use of three theoretical models: the functionalist model, the political-instrumentalist model, and the ideationist model. Further, the goal was to test which theoretical model has the highest explanatory value of the phenomenon privatization in the particular case of MONUC/MONUSCO. Most importantly, this research aimed at providing an answer to the main research question: To what extent can the theoretical models of Kruck (2014) explain the privatization of United Nations peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
Each sub-conclusion revealed that not every theoretical model applied in this thesis provides a convincing explanation of the privatization of peacekeeping in UN peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO. Moreover, the application of the three theoretical models on this specific peacekeeping mission demonstrated that the factors, and corresponding theoretical models, each expose different dimensions of MONUC/MONUSCO.
The application of the functionalist model, consisting of the factors complexity, resource dependence and cost-efficiency, demonstrated that all three factors provide valuable explanations on the use of PSMCs in UN peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO. Firstly, the factor complexity was uncovered by the fact that the peacekeeping mission was confronted with complexity-enhancing conditions such as unstable, unpredictable, and readily changing security situations, including violent non-state actors and contracted PMSCs to deal with some of those conditions. Secondly, the factor resource dependence was of considerable explanatory value as the results demonstrate that the UN reached out to the PMSCs market to find companies that could provide services which were not present, effective, efficient, or quick enough available in its own resources. Finally, the factor cost-efficiency was uncovered in the fact that the UN made rather cost-efficient decisions during the mission by contracting PMSCs that delivered clear benefits, and that the material costs of the contracted PMSCs did not indicate any excesses compared to the mission’s budget over the years.
The application of the political-instrumentalist model demonstrated that the factor depoliticisation by delegation turned out to be the least applicable as a convincing explanation of the privatization of peacekeeping in the case of MONUC/MONUSCO. The analysis
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convincingly showed that despite the fact that the UN only subjected armed PMSCs to UN criteria and control mechanisms, the UN did not aim at covering or downplaying its role and responsibility by contracting PMSCs during the mission. The UN only contracted PMSCs to support the mission’s peacekeeping personnel in fulfilling its role and responsibility for the mission and largely provided its own strength and capacity.
The ideationist model analysis, based on the factors laissez-faire (neo)liberal conception and state-interventionist conception, demonstrated that the UN has a more state-interventionist approach towards the use of PMSCs in the mission as it assigned the role of provision of peacekeeping to itself rather than consider the private military and security sector as the appropriate actor of providing peacekeeping. Nonetheless, the results also demonstrated that the factor state-interventionist conception is not able to give a complete explanation for the use of PMSCs in the mission because the UN did actively searched for market-based solutions during MONUC/MONUSCO, what indicates the reflection of a laissez-faire (neo)liberal conception in the ideas and norms of the UN.
Hence, the results suggest that the functionalist model has the highest explanatory value for the privatization of peacekeeping in the case of MONUC/MONUSCO as all of the three factors complexity, resource dependence and cost-efficiency to some extent explain the incentives of the UN to outsource several private military and security services to PMSCs during the mission. Nonetheless, to some extent, the ideationist model also has an explanatory value for UN’s outsourcing practices during the mission as a reflection of the state-interventionist model can be found within this specific case. Moreover, when evaluating the results of the analysis from the political-instrumentalist model, then passing towards the ideationist model, and ending with the functionalist model, one can observe a tendency of increasing explanatory value for the privatization of peacekeeping in the case of peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet the functionalist model is not able to fully explain the outsourcing of military and security services to PMSCs on its own, neither is the ideationist model. As peacekeeping mission MONUC/MONUSCO is an extremely large and complex case, due to among others presence of numerous stakeholders, worldwide involvement, and UN’s lack of transparency about its use of PMSCs, incentives for the privatization of peacekeeping within this mission can impossibly be explained completely and unconditionally by one theoretical model or viewpoint. Another
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limitation of this research is that data on the use of PMSCs by the United Nations is quite hard to find as the UN has not been very transparent about the use of Private Military and Security Companies during MONUC/MONUSCO, or in any other peacekeeping mission.
Nonetheless, this research provides a good starting point for research into the causes and conditions of the use of PSMCs, particularly as a lot of research hitherto focused on other aspects of privatization such as the advantages and disadvantages of the use of PSMCs for the provision of security. More importantly, the causes and conditions for the privatization of peacekeeping is an even lesser researched topic. This thesis aims to make a contribution to academic knowledge on an under-researched topic and intends to provide a basic theoretical framework that can be applied to e.g. UN’s other, plentiful peacekeeping missions. It is thus indeed suggested to research whether the theoretical models applied in this work can be used in the same fashion to other peacekeeping missions and provide additional insight in the United Nations’ incentives to use Private Military and Security Companies in its peacekeeping missions.
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