The 'Double Democratic Deficit'

Parliamentary Accountability and the Use of Force Under International Auspices

Heiner Hänggi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351147101
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Many current threats to security arising from terrorism, 'rogue' states and civil wars are highly complex and often transnational in nature and effect. Such threats can no longer be meaningfully addressed at the national level alone but require an international response. Since the end of the Cold War, the use of force under international auspices (UN, NATO, EU) has increased substantially. However, such actions have not necessarily been accompanied by improvements in their democratic accountability. Pre-existing problems and inadequacies of parliamentary oversight of armed forces and use of force at the national level of many democratic states are mirrored, and even magnified, at the international level. The effect of imperfect democratic controls at the national level and the challenges to provide transparent and accountable multilateral responses results in the so-called double democratic deficit of the international use of force. Each chapter in this innovative work analyses the challenges of parliamentary and democratic supervision of international security structures and puts forward proposals on how to improve democratic accountability of multinational responses to complex security challenges.

Part III
The un Context

Chapter 4
Parliamentary Accountability of Multinational Peace Support Operations: A Comparative Perspective

Hans Born and Marlene Urscheler

Introduction

During the Cold War, peace support operations (PSOs) were very limited in both numbers and scope, mostly because decision-making at the UN Security Council (UNSC) was severely constrained due to superpower rivalry. PSOs primarily consisted of the interposition of lightly-armed forces between parties to a conflict. Their limitation in scope was due to very restrictive rules of engagement, based on the peacekeeping principles of impartiality, neutrality and non-use of force. PSOs became more frequent after the end of the Cold War and the number of instances of UN involvement in conflicts increased substantially. Since 1945, there have been 54 multinational PSOs under UN mandate, with no less than 35 of these having been authorised by the Security Council between 1990 and 2000.¹ The UN is currently undertaking some 15 PSOs, involving 45,145 military personnel and civilian police (plus international staff and local personnel), 87 contributing countries and a budget of 2.77 billion dollars (United Nations, 2002).

Not only have the numbers become more impressive, but PSOs have become much broader in terms of both mandate and scope. Nowadays, PSOs take place in complex emergencies, and in some cases transitional administrations have even been created with a wide range of tasks (e.g. East Timor). The aforementioned three basic principles have at times been overridden. Nowadays, the mandates of many PSOs include the right to use force for protecting the operation or the goals of the operation, meaning the use of force beyond the self-defence of troops.

For as long as PSOs have existed, and especially in the 1990s, they have been evaluated and researched. These studies concentrate on the effectiveness of PSOs, 'lessons learned', the military decision-making process, the well-being of soldiers, the cooperation between NGOs and military units, cooperation between different countries, etc.² Paul Diehl (2001, pp. 202-226) analyses the different factors leading to the success or failure of a PSO in great depth, considering issues such as the impact of the organising agency, timing, consent accorded by the host state and other factors. Additionally, literature on parliaments rarely pays any attention to the parliamentary oversight of the military in general and PSOs in particular, since most scholars studying 'legislative affairs' focus on the general trends and powers of parliaments (e.g. Von Beyme, 2000; Olson, 1994; Norton, 1998). Despite some exceptions (Born, 2003a; Damrosch, 2003; Assembly of the WEU, 2001a; Wulf, 2003), less attention has been given to the crucial aspect of the democratic accountability and parliamentary oversight of PSOs. In spite of this rather modest interest shown by scholars, it is an important topic for at least four significant reasons.

Firstly, from a democratic governance point of view, no area or institution of the government can be exempted from parliamentary oversight, and this includes the government's foreign and security policy. Nowadays, it is important to apply this principle to PSOs, because they have evolved from marginal phenomena to an important tool for the maintenance or creation of international peace and stability and entered the mainstream as an instrument of national policy. PSOs are currently the prime activity of armed forces in most democratic societies (Haltiner and Klein, 2002).

Secondly, the argument that decisions on PSOs should only be taken by government and military officials and not by parliamentarians is flawed because many aspects of PSOs, such as the mandate and the rules of engagement, may have major political consequences. Therefore, the decision to commit troops to a PSO should most definitely involve the parliament.

Thirdly, some authors argue that PSOs are not carried out solely in pursuit of international peace and stability, but rather that they can be subject to political misuse and selective application. The absence of an impartial worldwide mechanism for deciding when, how and in which areas PSOs take place (Franck and Rodley, 1973), turns democratic accountability and, especially, parliamentary oversight into crucial elements of an appropriate system of checks and balances. Parliamentary oversight of governmental decisions and actions decreases the risk of any political misuse of PSOs.

Fourthly, PSOs are certain to fail if they are only backed by good intentions and lack sustained public political support in the contributing states (United Nations, 2000). The contributors' governments need public support for carrying out PSOs as troops and public funds are involved. By debating and authorising PSOs, parliaments are crucial for securing (or withholding) public support of PSOs (Lunn, 2000). Parliaments are an important link between the society, the government and the armed forces. For this reason, it is in the interests of the government to engage parliament in the process of sending troops abroad as much as possible, given that parliamentary debate and vote largely enhance democratic legitimacy and public support. As Chapter Threepoints out, parliamentary legitimacy is especially needed if the PSO involves the active use of force, high risks for the UN troops or if the belligerent parties do not give their full consent for the intervention.

The basic question that is addressed in this chapter concerns the extent to which parliaments are able to exercise oversight on PSOs. The actual focus of the research is limited in two ways. Firstly, the focus is on parliaments because only parliaments are able to provide democratic oversight that is embedded in the broad range of control mechanisms and institutions which normally exist in democracies, such as: executive control; judicial oversight; oversight by independent audit offices; NGOs and think-tanks in civil society (Norton, 2002; Born, 2003a). Secondly, the focus is not placed on military interventions in general, but on multinational PSOs with a UN mandate in particular. Therefore, wars of aggression as well as purely national PSOs or PSOs without a UN mandate are not taken into account. PSO is used as a generic term, encompassing a variety of interventions, based on the UN Charter, Chapter VI ('The Pacific Settlement of Disputes') and Chapter VII ('Action with respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression').³ Using Charlotte Ku's categorisation, multinational PSOs may range from Monitoring and Observation Missions, Traditional Peacekeeping, Peacekeeping plus State-building, Force to Ensure Compliance to Enforcement Operations. All these PSOs are regarded as operations for which troops are deployed abroad under the aegis of the UN. Though these operations differ in terms of the use of force and consent of belligerent operations, for the purpose of this analysis no distinction is made between these operations (see Chapter Three). The third limitation in scope is that only parliaments of the troop contributing state are under study. The accountability to the parliaments of the states that are to receive the troops is significant as well, but falls outside the scope of this research.

For the purpose of addressing the research question, the chapter is based on a comparative analysis of the powers and resources of national parliaments and their parliamentary defence committees in Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom. These countries have been selected because they share certain basic characteristics that are crucial for the topic under consideration. On the one hand, they are all democracies in the Euro-Atlantic area, where parliaments normally play a significant role in political processes and all of them are characterised as 'free countries' according to the Freedom House Survey, i.e. countries in which political rights and civil liberties are fully respected (Freedom House, 2003). Additionally, the countries examined share a long-standing experience of participating in PSOs. On the other hand, the selection includes some countries with different political systems (presidential and parliamentary democracies), allied and neutral states (NATO and one non-NATO member), as well as varied historical factors (consolidating and established democracies).⁴ The research was based on a questionnaire consisting of 57 items, ranging from the resources of the parliamentary defence committee, general parliamentary oversight powers, defence budget control, defence planning, procurement to military personnel management and PSOs.⁵ The use of a questionnaire was necessary as some elements of parliamentary oversight in general and of PSOs in particular are not designed by law but by customary practice. The questionnaires were filled out by members of the parliamentary committee on defence or security policy, who play an important role in the oversight of defence issues and of PSOs in particular.⁶ The results of the research are not so much a reflection of an 'objective reality' of parliament's powers, practices and resources, as a perception of this reality according to those parliamentarians. The data obtained was compared with information retrieved from open sources (e.g. parliaments' websites and the national constitutions). After the data was processed, the results were sent back to the parliaments, thus enabling them to clarify any possible ambiguities and for a last check on the accuracy of the data.

The chapter is structured as follows. Firstly, attention is paid to the relevant aspects of political decision-making on PSOs, especially within the context of the UN. Next, the focus is on the specific role of national parliaments in the oversight of PSOs. Then the main findings of the research concerning parliamentary oversight of PSOs in 16 countries are presented and analysed. The chapter concludes that there are great variations amongst the parliaments in the selected countries, varying from parliaments with a marginal influence on government's PSOs to parliaments with a substantial (co-)policy-making role. In the end, the parliamentary oversight of PSOs not only depends on oversight powers, but also on the resources of parliamentary committees and the willingness of parliamentarians to hold the executive accountable.

Political Decision-Making on PSOs

As mentioned in the introduction, PSOs became a mainstream instrument of national security policy and various types of PSOs have appeared since the end of the Cold War, some of which either completely abandon or only partially respect the basic principles of classical peacekeeping. In analysing the most relevant literature relating to PSOs, one can conclude that the mandate, rules of engagement, risk assessment, chain of command, duration of the mission and the financial consequences are the most important aspects of political decision-making.⁷

The mandate defines the aims of the mission, which may be grouped into different types of missions, ranging from low use of force to high use of force: monitoring and observation missions; traditional peacekeeping missions, force exerted to ensure compliance with international mandates and enforcement (see Chapter Three; Diehl, 2001, p. 218). The need for democratic accountability and parliamentary oversight is greater when a higher level of force is used, as this implies higher risks both for the local population and the troops (see Chapter Three).

The rules of engagement, which are often included in the mandate, are crucial in political terms as they define the level of force which the troops may use and under what circumstances. Depending on the mandate, the rules of engagement may permit the use of force for self-defence alone (minimum-level) up to the use of all necessary force required to safeguard the objectives of the mission (i.e. the maximum-level) (Born, 2003a).

Another elementary aspect of policy-making is the assessment of the risks for the troops in PSOs. Political leaders have to define what level of risks for the troops involved is deemed to be acceptable. The so-called 'body bag' hypothesis is relevant for this aspect of decision-making on PSOs. This hypothesis refers to the general belief that, in democracies, public opinion cannot accept casualties when troops are dispatched abroad on PSOs and that public support for PSOs will erode as soon as casualties occur (Everts, 2002). Based on this belief, political leaders of democracies plan PSOs in such a manner that the risk of casualties is virtually nil. However, in spite of this widespread belief, public opinion seems to support PSOs and accept casualties, providing that in their eyes, the PSO is effective and meaningful (Burk, 1995). Parliamentary debates and votes on deploying troops abroad could bolster public opinion in favour of PSOs.

In terms of political accountability, a precise definition of the chain of command is crucial for clarifying to whom the military commanders are accountable. In case of multinational PSOs, National Contingent Commanders report to the Force Commander, who in turn reports to the UN Secretary-General (UNSG). Experiences with previous PSOs show that a vague or contradictory chain of command can endanger the entire PSO, as was the case, for example, with UNPROFOR in Bosnia (United Nations 1999b). The duration of a PSO is often also partly influenced by political decision-making. In this regard, a distinction has to be made between the duration of the PSO and the duration of the contribution of troops from a particular country. Parliaments can require a government to withdraw its troops if the PSO's objectives are not met or if intolerable levels of casualties occur. Last but not least, as peace missions are rather costly, the budget available is the last point of political decision-making.⁸ Many multinational PSOs under UN mandate were hampered by financial problems (Diehl, 1993, pp. 75-77), and, therefore, the UN is dependant on voluntary contributions and expects that the 'wealthy' states in particular finance their own military contribution to a PSO (see, for example, United Nations Association – UK, 2003).

The mandate, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Acronyms
• I Introduction
• II The General Context
• III The UN Context
• IV The NATO Context
• V The EU Context
• VI Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index