China's and Italy's Participation in Peacekeeping Operations

Focusing on two contrasting troop-contributing countries—one a leading European contributor and the other an emerging peacekeeping country with the capacity to become a major contributor—this volume lifts the lid on the black box of the state to examine in detail the political factors and military considerations that influence national decision making about contributing to UN peacekeeping and the consequences of decisions to do so. Including studies on the legal frameworks for peacekeeping, implications of criminality in peacekeeping operations, and the training of peacekeepers, this book reveals what it takes to contribute UN peacekeepers in all its complexity. -- Alex J. Bellamy, University of Queensland
The chapters in this volume, edited by Andrea de Guttry, Emanuele Sommario, and Lijiang Zhu, offer a rich panorama of UN peace-keeping. The book is a comparative analysis of the practices of a medium-sized Western democracy, Italy, and a permanent member of the Security Council with a completely different system of government, China. The reader may appreciate the novelty of the chapters by the Chinese authors who give insight into a practice difficult to trace because of the paucity of data and the problem of sources. Traditional peace-keeping issues are dealt with as well as less explored topics such as the social-cultural motivations prodding the two countries to take part in peace-keeping operations. -- Natalino Ronzitti, Libera Università degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome