United Nations Peacekeeping Decisions: Three Hierarchies, Upward Mobility and Institutionalised Inequality among Member States

Abstract

This article explores the multiple and evolving hierarchies shaping UN decisions on peacekeeping operations. Three hierarchies—based on Security Council membership, financial assessments, and troop contributions—currently distribute influence over these decisions among UN member states. These hierarchies differ in their relationship to global stratification patterns, and in the states they empower. Their gradual “layering” has thus expanded the potential for upward mobility within the UN: states unable to increase their influence in one hierarchy can seek empowerment in another. Yet the UN peacekeeping case also highlights the limitations of hierarchy layering as an equalising mechanism in international organisations. New hierarchies supplement rather than replace older ones, and the degree to which they challenge existing rankings varies. Moreover, each new hierarchy inherently highlights, and creates institutional consequences for, a particular type of inequality among states. Consequently, hierarchy layering is best understood as recalibrating rather than eliminating institutionalised inequality in international organisations.