Dr Stephanie Blair
Acting Director, and Team Leader, Stabilisation Programme, Centre for Security Sector Management
Location: Wellington Hall
E: s.blair@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 1793 314 517
Department of Management and Security
Current activities
• Stephanie Blair is the team leader of the Stabilisation Programme and, for the duration of Dr Ann Fitz-Gerald's sabbatical in Canada (January-December 2011), she has been appointed Acting Director CSSM.
The Stabilisation Programme at the Centre for Security Sector Management (CSSM) is dedicated to practical and empirically-based research that supports the wider stabilisation community. The purpose of the stabilisation programme is to make the link between practice and theory, and training and education for the full spectrum of actors that are involved in peace and stability programmes. These programmes include what has been more commonly known as peacebuilding, statebuilding and relief and development interventions, all of which encompass civil-military interoperability in support of promoting more integrated approaches. The stabilisation programme accomplishes this through a wide variety of workshops, seminars, conferences, and applied research, training courses facilitated on behalf of the UK Stabilisation Unit. This academic and research area also features in a number of the accredited modules on Cranfield University’s MSc Security Sector Management.
Current Activities:
• Book Project: "From Practice to Theory: Conceptualising Stabilisation Interventions". The Stabilisation Programme at CSSM, with the support of the UK Stabilisation Unit, will convene an author’s workshop which will result in a peer-reviewed book with contributions from highly experienced practitioners and academics. Its scope will be to examine integration and interoperability across governments and multilateral organisations. The purpose of the project overall is to produce the first book which comprehensively examines stabilisation and stability operations, including both national and international approaches and a number of topical case studies. The book will be edited by Dr. Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, CSSM, Cranfield University and Dr. Stephanie Blair, CSSM.
• Training. The Stabilisation Programme facilitates the UK Stabilisation Unit Course encompassing 2 modules and a selection centre for senior planners.
• Partnerships and collaborative research work: SIPRI project: "The Civilian Contribution to Peace and Stability Operations". The project will support policy development and initiatives that will strengthen international, regional and national capacities to enhance civilian contributions to peace and stability operations. It will make a comparative assessment of international and regional organizations to take stock of the international architecture of civilian dimension of peace operations. It will also highlight how individual governmental initiatives can contribute to more effective international policies and structures and strengthen multilateral coordination. The project will make recommendations on how organizations and governments can develop—and implement—a coherent strategy for planning and implementing civilian missions and the civilian components of multidimensional UN peace operations.
• Conferences: ISA Annual Convention, Montreal 16-19 March 2011. Chair, roundtable, Civilian Expertise and Peace Operations: The Invisible Dimension. Although international peace operations are still generally perceived, especially in the popular media, as military interventions, civilian personnel play an increasingly important role. Peace operations now typically include significant political, rule of law, human rights and reconstruction components. National governments, regional organizations like the AU and EU, and international organizations like the UN, NATO and the OSCE are all currently further developing their civilian dimension policies and structures to meet the growing demand for civilian experts. However, these attempts continue to face serious shortcomings and challenges. This panel will examine the evolution of the international civilian architecture for peace operations and address the key dilemmas of expanding civilian roles in peace operations. In particular, the panel will focus on lacunae in current conceptual approaches concerning the identity and definitional issue, civil-military coordination, civilian-civilian coordination, and unintended consequences, such as displacing local capacity. The panel will also attempt to broaden the currently Western-dominated debate on civilian expertise by including new perspectives from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East.
• Research projects: The Stabilisation Programme is currently engaged in two research projects with sister centres from the Department of Management and Security.
• "Exploring the 'Foundational Moment': Designing the state in the aftermath of conflict when politics is possible again" This project aims to understanding the anatomy of the operational pause in order to better facilitate stable and sustainable state design. It is jointly led by Dr. Stephanie Blair, Team Leader, Stabilisation Programme and Dr. Matt Qvortrup, Senior Lecturer, Resilience Centre.
• "Leadership in Stabilisation Contexts". This project will examine and compare military and civilian leadership styles with a view to setting out an optimum set of leadership behaviour most suitable to civil-military interoperability in stability operations.
Clients
• UK Stabilisation Unit
• United States Institute for Peace (USIP)
• War-Torn Societies Project (now InterPeace),
• OCHA Civil Military Coordination Section (CMCS),
• the Kosovar Centre for the Documentation of Human Rights (KODI).
Background
She was educated at York University, Toronto, Canada; and Cranfield University, Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, UK. She received her PhD from King's College London, in the War Studies Department where she examined the relationship between internal and external actors under international transitional administration in Kosovo.
She was a member of the team which established the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre where she served as advisor to the President until 1997. In this capacity she was the co-founder of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres, and served as its first secretariat director.
Dr Blair has wide experience serving in civilian capacities in a number of post conflict countries including Bosnia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Cambodia and Kosovo. She has a unique field experience in serving throughout with the Kosovo crisis with both the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). She worked as a municipal administrator and policy adviser. During this crisis that she worked extensively with the KLA-UCK and supported its transition to the KPC.
She currently serves on the board of ISIS Europe, an independent research and advisory organisation, based in Brussels, that works to increase transparency, stimulate parliamentary engagement and broaden participation in EU and NATO policy-making.
Stephanie has worked on peacekeeping, intervention and stabilisation issues for almost 20 years and has published on peacekeeping, civil-mil issues, the EU’s CSDP and stabilisation. She is currently researching the civilian component of stabilisation operations, and examining issues of integration and interoperability.
Stephanie is regularly invited to contribute to seminars and conferences, in particular on the EU’s crisis management operations.
Key Research Areas:
Stabilisation; Peacekeeping; Civil-Mil issues; the Comprehensive Approach; EU Crisis Management Operations; Civilian Contribution to Peace and Stability Operations.
Selected publications
Books:
-‘Weaving the Strands of the Rope": A Comprehensive Approach to Building a Self-Sustaining Peace in Kosovo. (Halifax, NS: Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, 2002). http://www.dal.ca/~centre/pdf/weavingthestrandsoftherope.pdf.
Bibliography of disarmament, negotiations and treaties, Canadian Peacekeeping Press, May 02, 1995.
Co-Editor, ‘Refugees, Resources and Resoluteness’ (Cornwallis, Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1997).
-Co-Editor, ‘The New Peacekeeping Partnership’ (Cornwallis: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1995).
Chapters in Books:
Co-Author, 'Forging a Viable Peace: Developing a Legitimate Political Economy', in Covey, Hawley, and Dzeidzic, (eds), The Quest for a Viable Peace: International Intervention and Strategies for Conflict Transformation. (Washington, DC: USIP, 2005).
'The Relationship between Political and Military Activities in Peacekeeping', in Norton Moore, John, and Morrison, Alex, (eds.), Strengthening the United Nations and Enhancing War Prevention, (Virginia, Centre for National Security Law, 1999).
-'Transnational Associations of Peacekeepers', in Alagappa, Muthiah, and Inoguchi, Takashi, (eds.), International Security Management and the United Nations, (Tokyo, United Nations University, 1999).
-'United Nations Peacekeeping Reform: Something Permanent and Stronger/Peacekeeping with Muscle: the use of force in international conflict resolution', Brown Journal of World Affairs Winter/Spring 1996; 3(1) 95-111.
-‘Associate Editor, Peacekeeping and International Relations’ (Cornwallis, Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1997, 1996, 1995) bi-monthly publication examining the latest peacekeeping trends and issues.
-Assistant Editor, Canadian Defence Quarterly (Toronto: Baxter Publications, 1996).
-'Canadian Peacekeeping Policy and Practice: The Experience of MARCOT '96', in Maritime Security Working Papers (Halifax: Dalhousie University, December 1996).
-‘Canada and Peacekeeping: Dedication and Service’ (Cornwallis: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1995).
Papers Presented at International Conferences:
-‘The Challenge of Enhancing Local Participation in Peace Operations', in The Challenges of Change: In the 21st Century and Continuing Need for Reform (Ankara: Centre for Strategic Research, 2004). http://www.peacechallenges.net/pdf/Ankara%20Challenges%20Report.pdf
-'Forty Years of Peacekeeping: A Review' Presentation to international conference on peacekeeping, Rome, Italy: 7-10 May 1996, Canadian Peacekeeping Press.
