Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

In the past thirty years, after the Cold War period, the significance of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations has increased. The intention is to bring stability and peace to war-torn countries. An important ingredient of any mission success is based on peacekeepers themselves. Unfortunately, instead of security and safety, they frequently bring further misery and pain to the local societies. Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) remain a major problem in most peacekeeping operations. The past research focused on ways to mitigate the behavioral outcomes of SEA, however, it is not possible to eliminate it without changing the core behind any behavior, namely, motivation. The current research on combat motivation is based on the concept of cohesion that is formed by socialization processes toward the desired group prototype. This research argues that the consequence of this process is heteronomous motivation that requires increased self-regulatory capacities and therefore has a negative impact on task performance of peacekeepers, including a heightened risk of failure by committing SEA. The research is proposing an alternative model of combat motivation by illustrating the positive role on task performance and self-regulatory capacities of autonomy and choice.