29.04.11
Unpacking the “culture of protection”
A political economy analysis of OCHA and the protection of civilians
NUPI Report | Oslo, NUPI | 48 pages
Rather than using conceptual vagueness as an explanation for the lack of operational effectiveness on Protection of Civilians (PoC), this report focuses on the organization-specific interests of the key actors involved and their different views of, and interests in, the concept of PoC.
>> Summary
While we agree that the vagueness of PoC inhibits operational effectiveness, our focus here is on why the term has been defined in the way that it has. In short, we want to move from a description to explanation: Why is PoC defined in such broad and comprehensive terms? Why do different actors advance partly differing views on what PoC
should be?
We focus on the interests of key actors involved in formulating and advancing different aspects of the PoC, and how an actor’s political and institutional environment shapes those interests. Bodies like OCHA, DPKO, UNHCR and others are certainly bureaucratic organizations, but they must nonetheless compete for influence and resources, and as such they must be understood as political actors in their own right. Thus, rather than using the conceptual vagueness as an implicit explanation for the lack of operational effectiveness, we focus on the interests of the actors involved in formulating and advancing it.
We offer an account of how OCHA has used and defined PoC in ways that reflect its efforts to secure political influence in relation to other UN agencies and UN member states. This is not to suggest that OCHA has an instrumental relation to the plight of civilians in conflict areas. Far from it. We want to highlight a central feature of how all UN actors seek to do good while also advancing organizationspecific interests. Certainly, the ERC – as head of OCHA – has a mandate to advance humanitarian principles, key among which is the protection of civilians. But how to define and operationalize protection, and how to advance it in relation to other actors, such as the UNSC, cannot be read from the ERC mandate.
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