Lexington Books China's and Italy's Participation in Peacekeeping Operations: Existing Models, Emerging Challenges

Participation in international peace operations has become a key component of the foreign policy strategy of many countries worldwide. Italy and China have been, and are currently, involved in various efforts to maintain and promote international peace and security, including Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs). This book offers a description of the two countries' engagement in international peace operations, analyzing it through the lenses of law, sociology, history, and politics. The specific experiences of Italy and China provide an excellent opportunity for comparing and contrasting how and why foreign powers intervene in the name of peace. At the same time, this book focuses on a number of crucial challenges PKOs are currently facing (training of personnel, ensuring accountability, effectively assisting war-torn States in their rehabilitation effort), and tries to explain how Italy, China, and other international actors are trying to respond to the many dilemmas and contradictions of postwar peace. Contributors include academics from a wide range of disciplines and interests, diplomats, and practitioners involved in international peace operations. Review The chapters in this volume, edited by Andrea de Guttry, Emanuele Sommario, and Lijiang Zhu, offer a rich panorama of UN peace-keeping. The book is a comparative analysis of the practices of a medium-sized Western democracy, Italy, and a permanent member of the Security Council with a completely different system of government, China. The reader may appreciate the novelty of the chapters by the Chinese authors who give insight into a practice difficult to trace because of the paucity of data and the problem of sources. Traditional peace-keeping issues are dealt with as well as less explored topics such as the social-cultural motivations prodding the two countries to take part in peace-keeping operations.--Natalino Ronzitti, Libera Università degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome Focusing on two contrasting troop-contributing countries--one a leading European contributor and the other an emerging peacekeeping country with the capacity to become a major contributor--this volume lifts the lid on the black box of the state to examine in detail the political factors and military considerations that influence national decision making about contributing to UN peacekeeping and the consequences of decisions to do so. Including studies on the legal frameworks for peacekeeping, implications of criminality in peacekeeping operations, and the training of peacekeepers, this book reveals what it takes to contribute UN peacekeepers in all its complexity.--Alex J. Bellamy, University of Queensland About the Author Andrea de Guttry is professor of international law; director of the International Research Laboratory on Conflict, Development, and Global Studies; and director of the International Training Programme for Conflict Management at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa. Emanuele Sommario is assistant professor of international law at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa. Lijiang Zhu is associate professor of intentional law at China University of Political Science and Law.