1. Introduction
1.4. Research Method
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1.4. Research Method
This chapter will first provide a brief introduction into qualitative and quantitative research.
Following this, the author of this thesis will justify why this particular thesis will adopt a qualitative approach, more precisely a case study, and explain the kind of literature that will be used while conducting the research.
According to Jennifer Mason qualitative research is “not a unified set of techniques or philosophies, […] [as it] has grown out of a wide range of intellectual and disciplinary traditions.”37 The traditions qualitative research has grown out of include amongst others cultural studies, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. Through a range of research techniques, methods and practices, the qualitative approach can be an immense help when trying to explain or understand the social world.38 Quantitative research on the other hand “permits the researcher to draw inferences about reality based on the data at hand and the laws of probability.”39 This ability allows researchers to test how consistent theory created prospects are with reality and it helps with developing new theoretical expectations.40
Applying a qualitative approach seems to be the most feasible after taking a look at the pre-existing literature, which will be introduced in the next chapter. The pre-existing research is mostly qualitative including methods such as interviews, surveys, case studies, different ways of data collections, and analysis. The main theories consulted to understand the findings were feminism and gender studies. For example, Debbie Horsfall and Donna Bridges, who interviewed female
37 Jennifer Mason, “Introduction: The Challenge of Qualitative Research,” in Qualitative Researching, ed. Jennifer Mason (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2002), 2.
38 Mason, “Introduction: The Challenge of Qualitative Research,” 1.
39 Bear F. Braumoeller and Anne E. Sartori, “Empirical-Quantitative approaches to the Study of International Relations,” in Cases, Numbers, Models: International Relations Research Methods, ed. Delef F. Sprinz and Yael Wolinsky (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 139.
40 Braumoeller and Sartori, “Empirical-Quantitative approaches to the Study of International Relations,” 139.
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soldiers from the Australian Defence Force, indicate that they preferred the qualitative way, as it provided them with the possibility of a more in-depth investigation. They agree that a quantitative approach would have provided them with a broader idea of what female peacekeepers think, but they claim that the result would have been rather superficial.41 Horsfall and Bridges believe that a smaller sample “makes the findings richer, deeper, and more significant.”42 Something that should be noted, is that most of the interviews and surveys only targeted female peacekeepers, male colleagues were only referenced or cited by the interviewees, and the opinions of the local population can only be speculate on due to the behavior they have shown. Male voices are usually only heard in the form of higher ups or policy makers. It could be a consideration for future researchers to also interview male peacekeepers and the local populations. Jennings did conduct a rather comprehensive field study, which included peacekeepers, civilian personnel and local residents of both genders, but it solely focused on the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse, and didn't directly address the question whether women can make peace operations more effective.43
Theory wise policymakers seem to be favoring a functionalist approach, also called the operational-effectiveness argument.44 This approach basically says that “(i) women bring something to PKOs that men do not, and (ii) this contributes to more effective operations”45. As will be discussed more in-depth in the following section there is not enough evidence to 100 percent dismiss or support this approach, but the reliance and reinforcement of traditional gender
41 Donna Bridges and Debbie Horsfall, “Increasing operational effectiveness in UN peacekeeping,” Armed Forces &
Society 36 (2009), 123.
42 Bridges and Horsfall, “Increasing operational effectiveness in UN peacekeeping,” Armed Forces & Society, 123.
43 Kathleen M. Jennings, “Protecting Whom? Approaches to sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping operations,” Fafo Report, http://www.fafo.no/~fafo/media/com_netsukii/20078.pdf (accessed December 06, 2016).
44 Kathleen Jennings mentions that the operational-effectiveness argument seems to be popular with practitioners and policymakers because they have a job they need to get done, while a researcher's job is to think critical about the things they are presented, thus making them the main critics of the operational-effectiveness argument. Kathleen M. Jennings, “Women’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations: agents of change or stranded symbols?,”
Report, Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/137505/Women’s%
20participation%20in%20UN%20peacekeeping.pdf. (accessed December 03, 2016), 4.
45 Jennings, “Women’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations,” 4.
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stereotypes are worrisome. As the main arguments used in support of increased female participation have the potential to be harmful in regards to broader gender equality. According to feminism, a certain gender order is created when gender and security are linked in an all too easy manner. This critique is brushed off by supporters of the functionalist approach as exaggerated and hindering. In their view, the main goal, for now, is to add as many women to peace operations as possible, and if a polarizing narrative has to be used to convince the people that have decisive powers in this topic then that is the way it is. In Kathleen Jennings' eyes there is truth to both arguments, and as long as the discussion is conducted in a productive way, it will contribute to the further development of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.46 An approach that keeps being sidelined is the rights-based argument, it is seen as less convincing because it essentially states that women's participation in peace operations should not be questioned, participation in peacekeeping should be a right that doesn't need any further justification. Seeing something as a given right makes it hard to base a comprehensive argumentation on because people can disagree with the notion of participation in peacekeeping being a women's right but they cannot disprove it.47
Within the literature that is currently known to the author of this thesis there are only a few research papers that have used a qualitative approach. All of them have Sabrina Karim either as the main or co-author. In the paper Explaining sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions: The role of female peacekeepers and gender equality in Contributing countries, Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley used a binomial regression model to find out whether sexual exploitation and abuse is influenced by the number of women present in a peacekeeping mission,
46 Jennings, “Women’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations,” 4; Saskia Stachowitsch, “Feminism and the Current Debates on Women in Combat,” E-International Relations, February 19, 2013,
http://www.e-ir.info/2013/02/19/feminism-and-the-current-debates-on-women-in-combat/ (accessed December 06, 2016); and Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley, “Female Peacekeepers and Gender Balancing – Token Gestures or Informed Policymaking?,” International Interactions 39 (2013): 471f.
47 Jennings, “Women’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations,” 4.
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and the level of gender equality in the countries the peacekeepers are coming from. While the findings show support for the influence both variables have on sexual exploitation and abuse, the results are not “robustly statistically significant.”48 Karim and Beardsley argue that at the point of their study the number of women in peace operations was still small, which could be one of the reasons why the results are not conclusive. On the other hand, more support is found for the influence peacekeeping troops from countries with a better gender equality have on sexual abuse.49 Karim’s other two papers: The Double-Edged Sword of Security Sector Gender Balancing Reforms: Survey Evidence from Liberia and Reevaluating Peacekeeping Effectiveness:
Does Gender Neutrality Inhibit Progress? first conducted representative cross-sectional random cluster surveys and then used logistic regressions to analysis their findings. The findings of these studies will be presented at a later point within this thesis.
In conclusion, it can be said that more systematic research is needed, especially on how female peacekeepers might perform differently than their male counterparts. As mentioned in the pervious section, researchers should conduct interviews or surveys with male colleagues and the civilians they are supposed to protect, not just the female peacekeepers. Seeing how this thesis is limited in space, financially, and is lacking connections to peacekeepers and the local residents of a conflict region, it would be most feasible to conduct a case study on the all-female Indian peacekeeping unit, which was stationed within UNMIL. This specific unit was chosen because it was the first all-female unit to be deployed by the UN. The aim will be to analyze how this particular unit affected sexual assault rates and the occurrence of sexual exploitation and abuse by male peacekeepers.
48 Karim and Beardsley, “Explaining sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions,” Journal of Peace Research, 107.
49 Karim and Beardsley, “Explaining sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions,” Journal of Peace Research, 107.
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Looking at the literature available on the all-female Indian unit and female peacekeepers within UNMIL a couple different case studies by researchers like Sabrina Karim, and Laura Huber stand out. Some of their findings will be discussed in more detail at the end of chapter 3.
For now the author of this thesis would like to explain why a case study was chosen as the method for this particular research.
When trying to define what a case study actually is, things can get somewhat tricky as many researchers tend to focus on the different aspects of a case study. John Gerring sums up the most common explanations like this:
“To refer to a work as a case study might mean (a) that its method is qualitative, small-N […]; (b) that the research is ethnographic, clinical, participant-observation, or otherwise
‘in the field’ […]; (c) that the research is characterized by process-tracing […]; (d) that the research investigates the properties of a single case […]; or (e) that the research investigates a single phenomenon, instance, or example (the most common usage).”50 But Gerring argues that none of these definitions get to the gist of case studies, and thus he provides his own definition, which regards a case study “as an intense study of a single unit with an aim to generalize across a larger set of units.”51 He then argues that a case study can contain only one case or up to a very large number of cases, with the exception that a one unit case study should not focus on only one specific point in time, but should instead focus on the before and after, thus, creating two units within that one case.52
Gerring as well as Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett point out that case studies are mostly questioned because they seem to be lacking a certain amount of representativeness.
Because how can one case stand for a series of other cases? According to George and Bennett generalizing is actually one of the goals of case studies, and to Gerring, case studies just come
50 John Gerring, “What is a Case Study and What is it Good for?” American Political Science Review, Vol. 98 No. 2 (May 2004): 342.
51 Gerring, “What is a Case Study?” American Political Science Review, 341.
52 Gerring, “What is a Case Study?” American Political Science Review, 343f.
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with tradeoffs, because in turn the researcher gets an in-depths analysis, which is way more detailed than some quantitative methods.53
Since sexual assault is such a grey area, especially within the UN peacekeeping missions, it appears most feasible to conduct a case study in order to get an in-depth analysis of the issue. The all-female Indian unit was selected as a case because it was the first ever unit of its kind. Thus drawing extensive media attention and thereby coverage. An initial idea of comparing the all-female unit to a mix gender or all-male unit has since been discarded as information on a specific peacekeeping unit is hard to come by when the unit concerned is not all-female. Not to mention that different mission mandates might make a direct comparison rather questionable. This obviously does not mean that one case cannot stand for several other cases, since here the focus is not on whether the unit is better than other units but to gauge what effect the chosen unit has and what we can learn from it.
The author is aware that obtaining sexual assault rates is a difficult endeavor to begin with, and that it will be especially hard for a country that went through years of conflict and only recently started to stabilize. Therefore, the last part of Chapter 3, which will introduce the all-female Indian unit and provide background information on why the UN set up a peacekeeping mission in Liberia, will focus on what kind of effects the all-female unit and other female peacekeepers within UNMIL had in general. Chapter 4 will then analyze the unit’s effect on sexual assault, especially on sexual assault committed by male peacekeepers, and provide some policy suggestions.
In order to conduct this case study a detailed document, literature, and media review will be done. Throughout the research several different kinds of literature will be consulted. The author
53 Gerring, “What is a Case Study?” American Political Science Review, 348; Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), 10.
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will make sure that the used literature is in accordance with high-quality research standards. The consulted literature will include official documents and reports from the UN, media reports and press interviews with the all-female Indian unit, gender and sexual assault statistics, the previously mentioned case studies, and journal articles.