This comparative case study examines how parallel deployments impact on UN peace operations’ legitimacy. It focuses on if and how the two French military operations, Serval and Barkhane, affected the legitimacy of MINUSMA. A theoretical framework on relational dynamics of parallel deployments and on legitimacy was established. The first step was to analyze the legitimacy of Serval/Barkhane. Thereafter, the relational dynamics between Serval/Barkhane and MINUSMA were analyzed. Last step was discussing how the legitimacy of respective military operation and the relational dynamics could explain the parallel legitimacy dynamics. Using assessment reports by different institutions, a qualitative within-case analysis was conducted to identify changes in legitimacy. The study shows that both Serval and Barkhane had a negative impact on MINUSMA’s legitimacy but in different ways. Serval affected the legitimacy negatively by creating high expectations that MINUSMA could not fulfill. Barkhane affected the legitimacy negatively by making the UN peace operation seem partial due to its association with the counterterrorist Barkhane.

In recent years, some scholars have turned their attention towards the problem of multiple simultaneous peace operations (MSPOs), but with little focus on state motivations for their initiation. This thesis examines the case of the conflict in Mali and the high amount of operations deployed there by different actors. It does so through an instrumental case study of the establishment of these operations and of the French role in this process. The thesis finds that France was at first eager to deal with the conflict by supporting regional actors, but with the crisis deteriorating, becoming ever more involved. Next to its own intervention, it led various international organizations to operate alongside it in order to share the conflict management burden while remaining critically influential and securing its goals. This approach allowed France to balance the interests of its domestic audience, western allies, as well as those of the governments in the region. Based on the analysis, the thesis suggests that the proclaimed logic of division of labor between different organizations deploying MSPOs might be a justification for primarily generating as much resources as available while reducing various kinds of costs, although without any explicit evidence for it being a conscious effort of using the...