International Peace and Security

The idea that collective security can be created between nation states has been the basis for several international political initiatives, especially through the nineteenth–twenty-first centuries, epitomised by the League of Nations and then the United Nations. Yet, the record of these collective security institutions as maintainers of peace (whether negative or positive) is patchy to say the least. This chapter addresses the theory and practice behind attempts to manage international peace and security through such international organisations, which include practices such as the management of conflict and suppression of violence through peacekeeping and peace enforcement, arms control, and sanctions. The political and ethical limits of these approaches are evident, from the power politics that regularly undermine collective action to the self-reflection on failings that provoke new approaches to thinking about peace and security within them (leading to new ideas about human security, a responsibility to protect, peacebuilding, etc.). Given the complexity of these international organisations (e.g. the existence of ‘three UNs within one’) making a straightforward assessment of whether collective security institutions do or do not achieve their aims is prohibitive, as the examples touched on in this chapter will suggest. However, the limits of achieving peace through the collective work of states alone are clear and this directs our attention back to the necessity of thinking about peace in more holistic ways as captured in the field of Peace Studies.