Just Leaves in the Wind? Using Agent-Level Factors to Explain Variation in Human Rights Promotion Strategies

Abstract

There is growing scholarly interest in the role of individuals in UN peace operations, but this literature includes very little systematic analysis of how individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders affect how international interventions are conducted. This paper seeks to fill this gap by building a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics on the behaviour of field-level personnel. I then show the utility of this framework for explaining the human rights promotion approaches of peace operations through a comparative study of two directors of human rights divisions in the DRC.