Much of the scholarly literature on peacekeeping focuses on particular peacekeeping operations, or on the political bargaining between peacekeeping participants at both the institutional and national levels. However, there is very little published research on why nations commit forces to peacekeeping operations. As Sandra Whitworth noted in a book review of six books on peacekeeping in the International Journal, "the important political questions thus far have not been asked: who benefits, who pays, and who is excluded?". This book addresses that need.

The authors focus specifically on the political and economic motivations that influence the decision to participate in peacekeeping. They consider how definitions of national interest frame the political debate, and what the reasons are for the military support or opposition for peacekeeping operations. They also explore the role of inter-agency politics, the role of public opinion in peacekeeping decisions, and the influence of pressure from other nations and non-nation actors to commit peacekeeping forces. Each chapter includes several recent cases of national peacekeeping to illustrate how national political debates framed their country's political decisions on the commitment of peacekeeping forces. The countries chosen for analysis are Australia, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, Nigeria, Canada, India, and Austria.?

The Contributors

Alan James Bullion has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southampton; and is currently Associate Lecturer/Research Associate in Politics, The Open University, UK (1992–). His current research interests include Sri Lanka, India, UN peacekeeping, Tamil nationalism, and Asian agriculture.

Mary N. Hampton is an Associate Professor of Political Science from the University of Utah, and was in residence at Air War College during 2000– 2003 as a visiting professor in the International Security Studies Department. Her areas of research and teaching include international relations theory, international security issues, German/European foreign and security policy, and US foreign and security policy. She has published numerous articles and written or co-edited two books. Her most recent publications include ‘Eagle in the Field of Blackbirds: U.S. Military Lessons Learned and Applied in Bosnia and Kosovo’, a chapter in Lily Gardner-Feldman (ed.), Cooperation or Competition?; ‘ ‘‘The Past, Present, and the Perhaps’’: Is Germany a ‘‘Normal’’ Power?’, in Security Studies (winter 2000); and ‘Kosovo: Boom or Bust for the trans-Atlantic Relationship?’, co-authored with Heiko Borchert in Orbis (spring 2002). Herbert M. Howe is Research Professor of African Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He is the author of Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), as well as articles on African militaries in such journals as The Journal of Modern African Studies and International Security.

Alexander Ramsbotham heads the UN and Con.ict Unit at United Nations Association-UK. He previously edited the International Peacekeeping News and its successor the Con.ict Resolution Monitor, publications produced by the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, and continues to edit the ‘Digest’ and ‘Documentation’ sections of the Frank Cass journal International Peacekeeping. He is co-author, with David J. Francis, Mohammed Faal and John Kabia, of The Dangers of Codeployment: UN Co-operative Peacekeeping in Africa (Ashgate, forthcoming) and regularly comments on UN and related affairs in the British media.

David Rudd served in the Canadian military between 1985 and 1990. He holds a graduate degree in international relations from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has been the Executive Director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies (CISS) since 1998. He is a regular contributor to print and electronic media analyses of Canadian defence and security issues.

Erwin A. Schmidl is head of the Section of Contemporary History at the Austrian Defence Academy in Vienna (Institute of Strategy and Security Policy). He has worked and published on various aspects of peace operations for the past 12 years. Also, he has served as desk of.cer for peacekeeping in the Foreign Ministry’s UN Department in 1991–92, and was UN observer in South Africa in 1994. Hugh Smith is Associate Professor in the School of Politics, University College, University of New South Wales, at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra and was Founding Director of the Australian Defence Studies Centre at the College from 1987 to 1991. He has edited several books on peacekeeping and has published widely on armed forces and society, including topics such as of.cer education, conscientious objection, recruitment, women in combat, and reserve service. His most recent publication is an edited collection entitled The Strategists, published by the Australian Defence Studies Centre.

David S. Sorenson is Professor of International Security Studies at the US Air War College. He previously served on the faculty at Denison University, and was Senior Research Associate at the Mershon Center at Ohio State University. He has a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, and has published books and articles on American national security issues.

Cynthia A. Watson is Associate Dean for Curriculum and Faculty Development at the National War College, Washington, DC, where she has been a faculty member since 1992. She writes extensively on militaries and security issues in the former ‘Third World’, focusing particularly on Argentina, China, and Colombia. She is on the Editorial Board of Third World Quarterly, and is currently completing a book on the collapse of Colombia. She has an MA in Latin America Studies and Economic History from the London School of Economics and earned her Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Notre Dame.

Pia Christina Wood is Director of International Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University. She has published articles and book chapters on French foreign policy, the politics of the European Union, and Franco-German relations. Her forthcoming book is entitled French Foreign Policy toward the Arab–Israeli Conflict from Charles de Gaulle to Jacques Chirac: The Search for Influence.

Tom Woodhouse holds the Adam Curle Chair in Conflict Resolution at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK. He was the founding director of the department’s Centre for Con.ict Resolution and has written widely on con.ict analysis and conflict resolution. He edited the special issue of the journal International Peacekeeping, entitled Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution, published by Frank Cass (spring 2000). He has recently completed a report on con.ict prevention and the war on terror, entitled ‘Building the Democratic Peace’ (IDEA, Stockholm).