Compared to studies of war and other phenomena, analyses of peacekeeping are relatively recent and parallel the frequency and importance of that management technique in addressing conflicts around the globe. Early works in the 1960s through most of the 1980s were largely descriptive, single-case studies offered by peacekeeping commanders and others involved directly in the conduct of the operations. In the last two decades, the number of peace operations has exploded, now numbering more than 180 by some definitions (see Paul F. Diehl and Alexandru Balas, Peace Operations, 2014). Along with expansion of operations, the study of peacekeeping has evolved into a number of infrequently intersecting research milieus, each with its own orientations.

The books reviewed here represent two of those strands. The Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams collection is representative of an empirical orientation to peacekeeping, attempting to generalize across multiple cases. Such works have an underlying policy concern—here, problems with supplying troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations—but the policy implications are derivative of the primary concern with detecting empirical regularities. In contrast, the study by Laura Zanotti is in the “critical theory” mode, which has a dramatically different orientation. As the author notes (p. 76), in this approach, “[i]nternational intervention, be it peacekeeping or development, has been understood as the reflection of imperial aspirations, Western hegemony, or the projection of a (real or simulated) centralized power.” Accordingly, critical theorists of peacekeeping regard these operations as tools to promote Western neoliberal values and democratization; concerns of the local population are said to be ignored or subordinate to Western interests.

In Providing Peacekeepers, Bellamy and Williams take on the subject matter of troop contributions to UN peacekeeping operations, something that has attracted substantial scholarly attention if for no other reason than that data on them are readily available. The central research question focuses on state motivations to contribute to operations, and, by implication, reasons why those states are not willing to provide more. Two early chapters trace patterns of contributions. Chapter 2, by Donald Daniel, covers contributions over the 2000–2010 time frame. It is not clear why the time period is so restrictive, as the reader misses some of the evolution in contributions and contributors, and therefore the ability to discern certain rationales by examining patterns across different historical eras; to his credit, however, the author considers not just UN operations but those conducted by regional organizations and multinational coalitions as well. Chapter 3, by Katherine Coleman, focuses on so-called token contributions, demonstrating that many contributors have symbolic rather than substantive interests in providing troops.

In the opening chapter, the editors do a fine job summarizing and critiquing the different theoretical perspectives on state contributions (e.g., realist explanations). They do not necessarily offer an integrated theoretical perspective themselves, but use the book as an opportunity to explore a variety of different “rationales” that states might have in making contribution decisions. These rationales are classified in five categories (and there are variants within each category): political, economic, security, institutional, and normative respectively. The heart of the book consists of 16 case study chapters. At best, past studies have either focused on a single case (e.g., China’s contributions) or involved large-n analyses in which each case is reduced to a few variables. Here, the collection is able to provide depth and breadth, not only by virtue of the number of case studies but also by their variety—the latter is achieved by studying the Permanent 5 of the Security Council, as well as leading troop contributors and those that might be in the future. The editors gave the charge to each case study author to explore the five rationales. In practice, however, some chapters reflect this more formally and faithfully than others.

The editors offer two concluding chapters, the first attempting to synthesize the results of all the case studies. Not surprisingly, there are multiple rationales that account for state contribution behavior, although political motivations are the ones most consistently present. The net effect is that the book provides some brush clearing for future theorizing rather than theory itself. The editors do provide a theoretical framework for analyzing troop contributions in the future.

Left remaining is how important the contributions to peacekeeping operations really are. The editors correctly point out that the number and deployment size of peacekeeping operations have increased dramatically over time. In the concluding chapter, they also note several impending challenges that impact peacekeeping contributions: global financial crisis, difficult missions, and the tendency toward token contributions. Yet these are management problems for the organizing entity to solve. They do not necessarily impact the conduct or success of the peacekeeping operation.

Can problems in a peacekeeping operation be traced to inadequate troop size? There are some instances in which the operation would have gone better had more troops been present, with the Congo and Rwanda some examples. Yet peacekeeping operations tend to be suboptimal in most cases with respect to troop numbers. It is not clear that such problems stem from the reluctance of states to contribute to operations. The organizing agency tends to decide on troop strength without being constrained by potential contributions, or at least studies have not shown that this is a primary concern. The level of professionalism of the peacekeeping soldiers, which varies by contributing state, might be associated with their propensity for criminal and other undesirable activity (e.g., sexual abuse). Nevertheless, studies have demonstrated that other factors are far more important in determining peacekeeping success or failure than troop contributions. The bottom line is that this is a fine study that might not have theoretical or practical implications for other concerns of peacekeeping operations.

Despite concerns about the significance of the topic, the edited volume is likely to be of interest to several audiences. Most notably, policymakers—especially those at international organizations—will benefit from a greater understanding of state motivations and will find several good strategies toward the end of the concluding chapter. Peacekeeping scholars and their students will find useful the theoretical discussions at the outset and the attempt at integration in the second-to-last chapter. Most scholars, except for those interested in particular countries, can skip the case study chapters, as these are merely means to ends in explaining general patterns of state contributions.

Governing Disorder is fundamentally different from its partner work in this review. Laura Zanotti adopts the analytical framework of Michel Foucault to consider peacekeeping operations and indeed international security regimes in general. Foucault’s analysis of prisons and punishment is a standard tool for critical and postmodern theorists, and it is not as much of a stretch as it might seem to apply his thoughts on power in those contexts to peacekeeping. The introductory chapter and its successor are general treatments of Foucault and security regimes writ large. If Bellamy and Williams can be criticized for focusing on small phenomena, that is not a problem here. The analytical focus is broad: UN and global concerns with governance and democratization. To anyone outside of the genre, and this applies especially to policymakers, these chapters are filled with dense jargon and are therefore difficult to comprehend. The work becomes more transparent in the third chapter as debates in the UN over democratization and governance are subjected to critical analysis.

For those assuming that they would be reading a book about peacekeeping, it seems like a long wait until such operations get center stage with two case study chapters (Chapters 4 and 5). Zanotti draws on her own professional experiences with operations in Haiti and Croatia, respectively, to offer new insights. Detailing the historical run-up (starting in the 1800s) to peacekeeping in Haiti is perhaps unnecessary. The application of Foucault’s ideas on prisons, however, is spot-on with respect to the reform of Haiti’s judicial system. There are insights about this operation here that are offered nowhere else and comport well with the author’s critique of Western liberalism. In contrast, the subsequent chapter on Croatia is more superficial, missing some of the depth that is found in the explication on Haiti. In both instances, the analysis is more about UN actions and strategy broadly than about the actual peacekeeping operations per se.

The Zanotti book is likely to be read only by those in the growing and important milieu of peacekeeping scholars who are critical theorists. Nevertheless, it is not clear that there is anything unique about the insights relative to other works in this genre, although those with an interest in Foucault will find this application new. Policymakers will find little to grasp, given the difficulty in understanding and their predilections toward the very orientations that are critiqued here.

Both books are representative of the increasingly Balkanized study of peacekeeping, with authors writing to audiences with similar orientations to their own. Nevertheless, behavioral scholars of peacekeeping could benefit from Governing Disorder and other critical theory treatments in that they force scholars to look beyond the agencies and state providers of peace operations to the local level and the actors and impacts there. Such studies also raise new questions about motivations and impact that are often ignored when the focus is solely on empirical regularities. On the other hand, Providing Peacekeepers reveals a diversity of motivations and actions among member states contributing to operations that suggests to critical theorists that assumptions about a monolithic UN are misguided and require more nuanced treatments. Only by crossing some of these scholarly fault lines will students of peacekeeping gain a fuller picture of the operations and the implications for theory and practice.