While there exists a considerable body of literature on the development of UN peace operations: from traditional peacekeeping operations to today’s robust enforcement missions; scrutinizing their efficiency and the challenges they face – little attention has been paid to why various levels of military action are used by a mission. This study addresses this research gap by comparing three UN enforcement operations: MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNMISS in South Sudan, and MINUSMA in Mali. This study specifically investigates how the level of hostility in the conflict and commitment from the troop-contributing countries affect the level of enforcement actions taken in each conflict. The arguments are tested using a Structured Focused Comparison. The study finds that increased levels of hostility generated an increase in the level of enforcement in all three cases studied, while the level of commitment did not have the same distinct effect.

Women’s rights and female security is a growing concern in several conflicts around the world. In Congo, conflict-related violence has long been used as weapon and Congo has today become known as the “rape capital” beacuse of these war rapes. Further more, reports from South Sudan states that UN troops has ignored pleas for help by women being raped. United Nation Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 was implemented by the UN Security Council to combat conflict-related violence and add a gender perspective in UN Peacekeeping operations.  The aim of this thesis is to analyze the impact of UNSCR 1325 by comparing UN Peacekeeping operations’ mandates and actions before and after the resolution was implemented. The thesis will also analyse the UN’s action to eliminate conflict-based sexual violence and war rape. The peacekeeping operations that will be discussed are MINURSO (West Sahara) MONUSCO (Congo) and UNMISS (South Sudan). In order to do so, the theory of Female Security Studies [FSS] and Militarized Masculinity will be applied. In our thesis, the UN’s actions were found to be insufficient. The main factors resulting in this insufficiency was found to be the systematic failure to take the actions needed to implement UNSCR 1325, such as the increasing the number of female involvement in peacekeeping and peacebuilding processes. In large, the impact of UNSCR 1325 could have been bigger if the resolution had been implemented more efficiently. While the written changes were significant with the implementation of the resolution, these changes were not as visible among the actual actions taken in the peacekeeping operations in West Sahara, Congo and South Sudan.