Peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and the ‘balance of bureaucratic power’ in Kofi Annan’s Secretariat: a micro-history of two United Nations departments

This article reviews the interplay of bureaucratic, power-political, and conceptual challenges that affected the UN Secretariat during the tenure of Kofi Annan (1996–2006). Through fresh sources – including the diaries and private papers of the late Sir Marrack Goulding – it considers the case of the two largest and most influential administrative units in New York in charge of peace missions, the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). It argues that the reason for their notoriously conflictual relationship goes beyond bureaucratic rivalries and involves a host of systemic factors – including technocratic rationality, great powers influence over the Secretariat, UN financing, and the porous borders between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. These factors affected the 'balance of bureaucratic power' in New York, a balance which under Annan shifted from DPA and peacebuilding towards DPKO and peacekeeping, and which the reforms of Ban and Guterres have not fundamentally altered.