This article interrogates whether the contemporary United Nations peacekeeping system functions as an effective instrument of international security governance or remains an institutionally constrained and politically incomplete mechanism. Situating the analysis within International Relations debates on collective security, multilateral legitimacy, and conflict management, the study traces the evolution of UN peacekeeping from traditional inter-state monitoring operations to multidimensional and robust mandates operating in intrastate and asymmetric conflict environments. Employing a qualitative research design based on systematic analysis of secondary sources, including UN reports, Security Council resolutions, policy reviews, and peer-reviewed scholarship, the article adopts a dual-model analytical framework that contrasts peacekeeping as a working tool against peacekeeping as an incomplete mechanism. Empirical case studies drawn from Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Mali, and Cyprus demonstrate that UN peacekeeping can significantly reduce violence, protect civilians, and stabilize post-conflict transitions when mandates are clear, resources adequate, and political consent sustained. At the same time, the findings reveal persistent structural deficits, mandate–capability gaps, financial precarity, host-state dependence, and Security Council paralysis, that undermine operational effectiveness in high-threat environments. The analysis further highlights the normative and practical tension between consent-based peacekeeping and expectations of peace enforcement in conflicts involving non-state armed actors. By integrating empirical evidence with institutional analysis, the article contributes to IR scholarship by moving beyond binary success–failure assessments and reframing UN peacekeeping as a contingent governance mechanism whose performance is shaped by global power politics, bureaucratic design, and evolving security realities. The study offers policy-relevant insights into how technological innovation, Security Council reform, and regional hybrid arrangements could recalibrate peacekeeping for a multipolar order. In doing so, it provides a grounded assessment of what UN peacekeeping realistically delivers and why its reform remains central to the future of multilateral conflict management.
Hinmikaiye Peace Timi (Fri,) studied this question.