Dr Birte Gippert

Research Overview

My research focuses on global governance in peace and security and International Organisations. Specifically post-conflict peacebuilding and peacekeeping, predominanlty by the UN and EU, perceptions of legitimatcy and the effects of (de)legitimaton, and the role of coercion and violence in international peace operations. My regional expertise includes the Western Balkans and Haiti.

I am currently invovled in a number of projects. One focuses on political elites' strategic delegitimation of international organisations, specifically international criminal tribunals in the Western Balkans. It investigates the strategies of delegitimation used by political elites, the impact of political commentary on public legitimacy perceptions, and relegitimation strategies adopted by IOs in return. This project is funded by the British Academy and is a cooperation with Dr Theresa Squatrito at the LSE.

Another project investigates the long-term effects of UN peacekeeping operations on democratisation of host state governments. This project investigates the negative unintended consequences of UN peacekeeping on host state authoritarian practices, specifically it shoes that UN peacekeeping operations unintentionally enable authoritarian practices by host governments. This project is a cooperation with three others UK-based researchers and is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Details and outputs can be found on our website Democratization and UN Peacebuilding (https://democratizationandpeacebuilding.org/publications).