UNPEACE - The United Nations as a Platform Enabling Agonistic Contestation and Engagement?

Growing resistance to US hegemony and greater influence of regional powers makes conflict, opposing positions and tension seem unavoidable in international politics. Nevertheless, conflicts need not take an antagonistic, violent form. UNPEACE investigates challenges and potential of agonistic disagreement in international relations in terms of conflict between legitimate adversaries as opposed to enemies that are to be destroyed.

It does so by investigating how disagreement is handled in diplomatic meetings in two central UN diplomatic platforms, in the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly analysing diplomatic engagement in relation to a critical and topical issue - the Israeli Palestinian conflict (1948-). UNPEACE uses a mixed methods approach combining interviews, filed observation and Video Data Analysis. Analysing comprehensive qualitative material, UNPEACE will produce in-depth findings on micro-dynamics of disagreement in diplomacy that advance significantly beyond the state of the art. Based on the cross-case comparison of diplomatic spaces as well as co-creation with diplomats, UNPEACE develops ideas on how existing procedures can be refined to improve conditions for agonistic engagement in diplomacy.

UNPEACE generates important knowledge on the dynamics of disagreement and conditions for agonistic engagement in diplomacy that is critical for comprehending and potentially improving diplomatic practices in the challenging contemporary geopolitical landscape. Investigating how a new era of power politics can be an agonistic power struggle rather than an antagonistic one, the project findings can have profound implications for the theory and practice of diplomacy.