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DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESS IN UN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS Jacques L. Koko & Essoh J.M.C. Essis Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012 100 pages, paper, $25.99
Koko and Essis take on the ambitious task of seeking to identify the deter-minants of successful UN peacekeeping operations. In their introduction, the authors contend that a thorough and systematic inquiry into the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations is necessary due to the lingering sentiment among scholars, policy makers, and the general public, that UN peacekeeping missions are essentially expensive and ineffective. The authors posit that these widely held and entrenched perceptions are not based on a comprehensive analysis of the issue. Considering the significant amount of resources that UN peacekeeping operations utilize (not only financial resources, but also human resources in terms of peacekeeper casualties), the research questions that the authors address in this book are relevant and timely.
The book has been adapted from the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Koko and maintains an academic essence-terms and assumptions are carefully explained, the research questions are explicitly articulated, methodology and data sources are clearly laid out and a great deal of attention is given to the statistical analysis. While someone without a background in statistics may find the third chapter (Statistical Methods and Results: The Factor Analytic Model) somewhat tedious and difficult, the final chapters discussion provides a clear and straightforward...