What we really talk about when we talk about nationality: bureaucratic representation in UN Peace Operations

While there has been increasing focus on the bureaucratic features of international organizations, analyses of staff composition have largely focused on passive representation of states within various IO secretariats either as a function of relative member state power or as a more general legitimating strategy for the IO itself. Informed by theories of representative bureaucracy and the link between passive and active representation, this paper seeks to complicate the association between staff nationality and member state preferences by exploring the different ways in which staff nationality operates in the context of UN peace operations. Based on interviews with UN staff and diplomats, the paper will analyse the ways in which normative approaches to staff nationality (equitable geographical distribution) can conflict with both other forms of legitimacy (process and output) as well as internal administrative politics, in particular in peace operations. In doing so, the paper suggests that within international organizations there is a fundamental tension between street level bureaucratic functions and elite driven expectations of international civil servants.