D-SIP – Domestic Security Implications of UN Peacekeeping in Ghana

D-SIP is a five-year research project that explores the linkages between UN peacekeeping contributions, domestic security provision and drivers of stability in Ghana. It generates knowledge on how participation in peacekeeping abroad shapes the effectiveness and legitimacy of the police and military and provides insight into the broader dynamics of peace and state-building. D-SIP looks at this issue from the national to the local level, and from policy-making to everyday practices of policing.

D-SIP is coordinated by DIIS, in partnership with the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana, Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), and Danish Institute Against Torture (DIGNITY). It is funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Danida.

A Ghanaian peacekeeper with the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Photo by UN Photo/Staton Winter
Contact

DanishInstitute for International Studies

Dr Peter Albrecht, Senior Researcher


Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana

Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, Director

Dr Richard Asante, Senior Research Fellow

Dr Osman Alhassan, Senior Research Fellow

Dr Deborah Atobrah, Research Fellow


Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)

Dr Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, Director

Dr Emma Birikorang, Deputy Director

Dr Festus Aubyn, Researcher

Dr Fiifi Edu-Afful, Research Fellow


Royal Danish Defence College (RDDC)

Dr Maya Mynster Christensen, Associate Professor


Advisory Board

Professor Christian Lund, Copenhagen University

Professor Paul Nugent, The University of Edinburgh

DrMarsha Henry, The London School of Economics and Political Science

DrMats Utas, Uppsala University

DrCharles Hunt, RMIT University, Melbourne

DrLouise Riis Andersen, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

 
Read more about the project

 
Since the early 2000s, UN peacekeeping missions have increased in scope and complexity. The sustainability of UN operations depends on countries from the global South that constitute the top ten contributors. Their motivation to provide peacekeepers are economic, political, institutional and normative. In contexts of regional stability and state fragility, motivation increases as peacekeeping becomes a matter of national security interests, territorial self-defence and threat mitigation.
Knowledge is lacking on how peacekeeping participation impacts on domestic security and stability in troop contributing countries, and D-SIP sets out to explore this issue.

Ghana is a privileged space for this kind of research. The country has engaged in more than 30 UN peacekeeping operations since the 1960s and is among the world’s largest troop contributors. Despite changing governments and regimes, Ghana has been committed to contribute to international peacekeeping, and continues to play a vital role as a peacekeeping pioneer. It is a country characterized by rapid economic growth and democratic consolidation – a stable country in an unstable region that is faced with long-term and emerging security threats, including the effects of refugee flows and insurgent groups. Ghana’s sustained contribution to peacekeeping missions and conflict prevention depends on maintaining this status.

D-SIP introduces the notion of peacekeeping assemblages to analyse local-global co-production of security discourse and practices. The concept involves attention to how security is structured by relations between the local and the global, the public and private. It calls for a reassessment of more state-oriented approaches to security provision, as well as the notion that peacekeeping predominantly influences mission-hosting countries, and not those that contribute troops.

On the contrary, returning military and police personnel enter their respective forces, and have a direct stake in what security means, how it is discussed and practiced. They also set up or join private security companies, for instance, interact with, and at times become embedded with, civil society organisations, neighbourhood watch groups, traditional authorities, religious bodies – and the general population.

D-SIP will inform both academic and policy discussions on the current and future role of peacekeeping – and its implications for the countries that send them.

Blog: Researchers' reports from the field

Police Northern Ghana.
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By Peter Narh
Illegal gold mining Ghana.
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By Pius Siakwah
researchers and fulani community
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Farmer-herder conflict Ghana
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By Deborah Atobrah
Fulani herdsman
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Why the Nanumba should care about Fulani herdsmen-Konkomba farmer conflicts
Mine Ghana
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Just intervention or selective justice?
black white
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A revelation on blacks and whites
Cattle West Africa
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Observations from Gushiegu, Donkorkrom and Dawadawa

Research and activites

Contact

 Peter Albrecht
Global security and worldviews
Senior Researcher
+45 3269 8772