UN peace operations are overwhelmingly deployed within societies fractured by civil war. To understand why the UN has encountered difficulties, operational and political, in these settings, one must understand the political economy of civil war.

These informal networks of power and their consequences for efforts to end wars and build lasting peace, are examined this episode of The World Stage.

Professors Mats Berdal (King’s College London), Jana Krause (University of Oslo), and Cedric de Coning (NUPI) discuss how the power structures and conflict dynamics generated by these political economies interact with the UN missions themselves.