Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Doctoral Dissertation in progress

"International policing and the United Nations: the Greek case"

Commencement date: June 7, 2022

Abstract

During the last decades we have witnessed the rise of policing in peace operations under the command of the United Nations (UN) or other regional organisations. The practice of international policing is inextricably linked with the evolution of peace operations as witnessed during the last decades, in line with the adoption of more comprehensive mandates and goal-setting by the Security Council. This thesis will attempt to provide a comprehensive mapping of the evolution of multilateral police cooperation within the framework of UN peace operations, in order to critically discuss the political incentives for the shift from purely military operations to international policing, as well as for states’ participation in this venture. The empirical part of the thesis will focus on the Greek case, aiming at a comprehensive and critical assessment of the Greek contribution to the existing multilateral institutions in this domain and at the examination of the prospects of fully incorporating international policing in the Greek foreign policy planning related to UN operations. In terms of theory, the thesis will attempt to address the theoretical lacuna in the study of peace operations that are usually treated as policy tools: their study is fragmentary in nature, cut off from the theoretical international relations debates. This fact undermines macro-level analysis of their role in international politics as well as the examination of policy propensities in this domain.