April 24, 2020

International Politics and Conflict Resolution

Paula Duarte Lopes

When the United Nations (UN) established its Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) on December 2005, the organization was not aware of the implications for peacebuilding at the institutional level nor on the implications with regard to which countries would benefit from this new peacebuilding framework. The analysis of its first decade (2005-2015) suggests, therefore, almost some sort of competition between two of its three bodies, namely the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), seemingly changing the initial expected roles for each body. The way the PBC and the PBF put peacebuilding into practice reinforced country labelling inside the UN. The fact that Comoros and Côte d'Ivoire were the only countries whose official request to be included in the PBC were rejected and that they were subsequently directed to the financial support of the PBF illustrates these labelling dynamics. The reasons underlying this decision are not clear, since no specific consolidate criteria exists to explain these decisions. In this scenario, this thesis opens the 'black box' of international organizations' decision-making processes in order to identify the underlying reasons and practices that determine difference in country labelling between the PBC and the PBF. This discussion is not on the ideal type of decision-making model or on the number of decision-making models that may (or may not) co-exist inside the PBA. In order to fully address this issue, the thesis engages with the discussion on labelling dynamics inside the PBA, focused on the decision-making processes established and practiced. Embedded on a practice tracing methodology, this thesis does not provide a comparative analysis of the PBC and the PBF per se, but rather builds on their analysis to provide an integrated reading of the PBA's functioning, focusing on the dynamics between countries' framing and labelling and their respective eligibility for peace.

Keywords: Decision-Making, Framing, Labelling, the UN Peacebuilding Architecture, the United Nations