// PHD PROJECT: The New Spirit of Technocracy? Ordering Practice in United Nations Peacebuilding
/ Theme

Is world politics becoming more democratic and more participative? Students of global governance suggest this is the case. Yet others suggest rather the opposite and see world politics as drifting towards a closed technical system, in which decisions are made by bureaucrats and technical experts in the first place. Are we on a path towards a global democracy or a global technocracy? The project addresses this question in investigating newly established practices of organizing peacebuilding. Only by careful empirical investigations of in situ practices can we gain insights on technocratic and democratic tendencies as they unfold. Peacebuilding is an ideal case to investigate this, as here is a regime in emergence, that is, since the 1990s one of the core domains of international politics. Reconstructing the construction of this regime is the objective of this project. The project asks who are the actors in peacebuilding and what are their practices.

/ Relevance The project makes three core contributions to the theoretical and empirical literature of International Relations. (1) Its theoretical approach will be of interest for those working on the development of sociological practice theories to study world politics. (2) Its empirical results contribute to the study of global bureaucracies, their working practice and impact in world politics. (3) For students of UN peace operations the project is of interest concerning the organization of peace operations through coordination boards and best practice technology. 
/ Research Design The project follows a relative unconventional research design. In understanding the role of the researcher similar to that of a criminal investigator, the reader is taken on a journey through the UN bureaucracy and the sites in and outside of the UN, in which peacebuilding is ordered and organized. Drawing on qualitative interviews and textual analysis the following sites are investigated in more detail: (1) The Department of Peacekeeping Operations with a focus on the work of the Peacekeeping Best Practice Section; (2) the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Support Office; and (3) the Joint Monitoring and Coordination Board for Afghanistan. In all three cases the different practices of actors are carefully reconstructed and scrutinized in the light of the question of a technocratic drift.
/ Results The project's results are currently prepared for publication. For related publications please see the working paper and publications section. If you are interested to learn more about the project, or have questions on the results of the project, please contact me by email.