Peacekeeping and development assistance are two of the UN's defining activities. While there have been extensive studies of UN engagement in each of these areas, respectively, less attention has been given to the relationship between peacekeeping and development.

In this article, the authors examine that relationship. They do so by first considering whether concepts and principles that underpin peacekeeping and development cohere. They then combine original quantitative data with qualitative analyses in order to document the degree to which development goals and activities have been incorporated into UN peacekeeping operations since their inception over 70 years ago.

While they observe a steady increase in the level of engagement of peacekeeping with development over time, they argue that short-term security goals have been prioritised over longer-term development objectives in a number of recent UN peacekeeping operations, as peacekeepers have been deployed to contexts of ongoing conflict.

John Gledhill, Richard Caplan and Maline Meiske (2021) 'Developing peace: the evolution of development goals and activities in United Nations peacekeeping', Oxford Development Studies, 10.1080/13600818.2021.1924126