Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945-1971

This history of colonial legacies in UN peacekeeping operations from 1945-1971 reveals how UN peacekeeping staff reconfigured the functions of global governance and sites of diplomatic power in the post-war world. Margot Tudor investigates the UN's formative armed missions and uncovers how officials exploited their field-based access to perpetuate racial prejudices, plot political interference, and foster protracted inter-communal divisions in post-colonial conflict contexts.

Format: Hardback
Length: 310 pages
Publication date: 27 April 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

This extensive history of colonial legacies in UN peacekeeping operations from 1945 to 1971 explores how United Nations peacekeeping personnel reconfigured the functions of global governance and diplomatic power in the post-war world. Despite the criticism levelled at peacekeeping operations for their colonial underpinnings, our understanding of the ways in which colonial actors and ideas influenced peacekeeping practices on the ground has been limited and imprecise. In this multi-archival study, Margot Tudor delves into the UN's formative armed missions and uncovers the officials who orchestrated a reinvention of colonial-era hierarchies for Global South populations on the front lines of post-colonial statehood. Tudor demonstrates how these officials exploited their field-based access to perpetuate racial prejudices, plot political interference, and foster protracted inter-communal divisions in post-colonial conflict contexts. By bringing together histories of humanitarianism, decolonisation, and the Cold War, Blue Helmet Bureaucrats sheds new light on the mechanisms through which sovereignty was negotiated and re-negotiated after 1945.

This extensive history of colonial legacies in UN peacekeeping operations from 1945 to 1971 explores how United Nations peacekeeping personnel reconfigured the functions of global governance and diplomatic power in the post-war world. Despite the criticism levelled at peacekeeping operations for their colonial underpinnings, our understanding of the ways in which colonial actors and ideas influenced peacekeeping practices on the ground has been limited and imprecise. In this multi-archival study, Margot Tudor delves into the UN's formative armed missions and uncovers the officials who orchestrated a reinvention of colonial-era hierarchies for Global South populations on the front lines of post-colonial statehood. Tudor demonstrates how these officials exploited their field-based access to perpetuate racial prejudices, plot political interference, and foster protracted inter-communal divisions in post-colonial conflict contexts. By bringing together histories of humanitarianism, decolonisation, and the Cold War, Blue Helmet Bureaucrats sheds new light on the mechanisms through which sovereignty was negotiated and re-negotiated after 1945.

This extensive history of colonial legacies in UN peacekeeping operations from 1945 to 1971 explores how United Nations peacekeeping personnel reconfigured the functions of global governance and diplomatic power in the post-war world. Despite the criticism levelled at peacekeeping operations for their colonial underpinnings, our understanding of the ways in which colonial actors and ideas influenced peacekeeping practices on the ground has been limited and imprecise. In this multi-archival study, Margot Tudor delves into the UN's formative armed missions and uncovers the officials who orchestrated a reinvention of colonial-era hierarchies for Global South populations on the front lines of post-colonial statehood. Tudor demonstrates how these officials exploited their field-based access to perpetuate racial prejudices, plot political interference, and foster protracted inter-communal divisions in post-colonial conflict contexts. By bringing together histories of humanitarianism, decolonisation, and the Cold War, Blue Helmet Bureaucrats sheds new light on the mechanisms through which sovereignty was negotiated and re-negotiated after 1945.

Weight: 648g
Dimension: 160 x 237 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781009264921