The United Nations Peace Force in Cyprus as the Psychiatrist of Global Governmentality on the ‘Dangerous’ Cypriot Population

Abstract

Research objective of the paper is to expose how the governance of Cypriot community via the United Nations is directly linked to the governance on a global scale, in other words to the global government of liberal peace. Approaching from the Foucaldian perspective, the author aims to pose problems by deconstructing the peacebuilding activities of United Nations rather than to propose solutions and recommendations based on problem-solving instrumental rationality. That research consists of two parts. In the first one, United Nations activities in Cyprus are evaluated in a wider, political context. Method used here is making the conflicts between Cypriots and UN more visible in order to uncover power relations embedded in that relationship. In the second part, how the conduct of world populations, in other words government of them, is made possible through the control of discourses is articulated. In the light of the arguments made in that paper, the author finally suggests that UNFICYP holds the role of a psychiatrist who has the task of curing the disease posed by a dangerous individual against the social body. Criticizing the functions of UNFICYP via that metaphor renders us to comprehend the current practice of peacebuilding as the hegemonic imposition of liberal peace.

Introduction

The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has been deployed to the island on March 1964 on the basis of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 186. The mandate has three major goals which are preventing a recurrence of fighting, contributing to the maintenance and restoration of law and order, and contributing to a return to normal conditions (United Nations Security Council [UNSC], 1964). Since the peacekeeping force is still positioned on Cyprus after more than forty years, it seems that mandates couldn’t have been reached. But it is difficult to evaluate, since neither normal conditions nor order were defined in the UNSC Resolution 186. Furthermore it is not clear whose interests the peacekeeping force serves. Moreover, immense international efforts put in the resolution of the Cypriot conflict accumulating military and civilian aspects of peacebuilding reflect that this small flashpoint contains greater significance for international community than it seems. That is why my research focuses on the functions of UNFICYP. Objective of that research paper is to expose how the governance of Cypriot population via the United Nations is directly linked to the governance on a global scale, in other words to the global government of liberal peace. In order to attain this objective, as Foucault (1988a, pp. 153-157) argued on what the practicing criticism is, conflicts shall be made more visible; not for their sake, but to show that they are essential and more than mere confrontations. By doing so, unchallenged assumptions, uncontested modes of thought, or basically the truth which justifies certain practices can be problematized. The legitimizing discourse of UNFICYP activities is the discourse of UN peace operations which holds a modern character due to its representation of problem-solving attitude and expert institutions (Vayrynen, 2004, p. 129). That character renders UNFICYP to respond the Cyprus conflict by looking for an appropriate policy to enhance the geo-strategic interests of global powers, in other words UNFICYP attempts to de-escalate violence in a short-term rather than to comprehend the deep, historical causes of the conflict. Hence, that modern attitude shall be problematized in a global, political context. However, that task shall not be interpreted as to replace one regime of truth with the other. As Paris (2002, pp. 655-656) suggested, studying peace operations should focus on investigating fundamental presumptions of peacebuilding rather than providing practical policy-options aimed at enhancing the ability of peace-builders to control the local conflict. Therefore, in terms of Pugh (2003), “deconstructing the simulacra of peacekeeping offers no alternative teleology of progress and no prescription for change other than continual creative opposition to hegemonies of all kinds” (p. 111). Shortly, methodology of that research paper is to pose problems rather than proposing new policies which are doomed to create unintended problems. By making the confrontation between UN activities and Cypriot population visible, it will be possible to expose the relationship between the discourse of UN peace operations and the power exercised by UN activities upon Cypriots which constitutes the critique, in terms of Foucault (1988a) “the de-subjugation of the subject” (pp. 152-58).

That research consists of two parts. In the first one, activities of UNFICYP are evaluated in a wider, political context. Those functions include not only peacekeeping, but also humanitarian and policing works, UN mediation, shuttle diplomacy, UN Secretary General good offices, and negotiation. Exhibition of conflicts will be attained in that part through three analyses: of the objectification of Cyprus conflict, of the power relations subjugating Cypriot population, and of the Cypriot resistance as an anti-authority struggle. Exposing the power exercised through the UN peacebuilding activities in Cyprus enables us to problematize its’ underlying, unchallenged and taken for granted assumptions and modes of thought. In the second part, how the conduct of world populations, in other words government of them, is made possible through the control of discourses is articulated. Discourses that legitimize UN peacebuilding activities in Cyprus restructure other possible actions both in Cyprus and in other places of the globe. Those discourses, while constraining several of possible actions by making them difficult to be exercised, induce other actions by making them imperative. In the light of the arguments made in that paper, author finally suggests that UNFICYP holds the role of a psychiatrist who has the task of curing the disease posed by a dangerous individual against the social body. Prescription is the transformation of the dangerous subject and continuous surveillance of it.

Part I

A power relationship has two inherent elements: first is the existence of “the other” of which the power is continuously exercised. “The other” is forced to give consent to the power exercised upon it. This consent is acquired by objectivizing “the other” which transforms it into a subject. On the other hand, once faced with a relationship of power, the subject reacts, responses, and rebels, which constitute the second element of a power relationship (Foucault, 1983, p. 220). This part of the research will explore the power relationship between Cypriot population and UNFICYP via three analyses. First, process of subjectivizing the Cypriot population through internationalization, in other words objectification, of the inter-communal conflict in Cyprus will be analyzed. Then, by using analytical tools provided by Foucault (1983, p. 223), power relations targeting Cypriots will be elaborated. Thirdly, Cypriot resistance will be examined if it is an anti-authority struggle or not.

Analysis of the subjectivization of Cypriot conflict: Internationalization of the Cyprus problem in 1963 opened the whole possibilities of intervention whether military, political or social. Through the discourse of peacebuilding and conflict resolution, involvement of variety of foreign actors ranging from guarantor states and regional powers to international peace operators was legitimized. The Cyprus conflict first transmitted to international field by the United Kingdom’s initiative of international conference in London on January 1964 immediately after the local upheavals of December 1963. Fearing of complete breakdown of the Cyprus Republic, and escalation of local conflict into a regional one between Greece and Turkey, UK and USA came with the idea of NATO peacekeeping (Coufoudakis, 1976, pp. 462-63). However, after negative responses by USSR and Makarios to that idea, UN peacekeeping was introduced as an alternative. Makarios, Greek-Cypriot leader and recognized president of Cyprus, believing in the principles of the UN Charter and relying upon its framework preferred UN force to NATO which, he believed, could have increased Anglo-American influence on Cyprus (Richmond, 1998, p. 93). Assuaged by the discourse of United Nations, Makarios gave his consent to the deployment of international force on Cyprus.

Internationalization of Cyprus conflict was not determined by the eruption of violence on the island. During the 1950s, substantive amount of terrorist acts had been executed. However, in that time, USA and UK had tried to prevent the internationalization of the problem which was contrary to their behavior in 1960s. Several attempts by Greece to bring the issue to the UN General Assembly were defeated by NATO members in the assembly (Bolukbasi, 1998, p. 413).

Internationalization of the conflict increased direct interference by Turkey and Greece to Cyprus. Totalization and individualization of Cypriot identities have been perceived normal and legitimate. Whereas the Turkish authorities via Turkish Defense Organization (TMT) crushed dissident voices among Turkish-Cypriots and created homogenous, total Turkish-Cypriot identity, they also individualized Turkish-Cypriots and forced them back onto themselves by isolating them from Greek-Cypriots. The same process was experienced in the Greek side through EOKA-B, although it was slower due to Greek-Cypriot resistance to that process (Pollis, 1978, pp. 62-69). Government of individualization was not only exercised by local authorities but also by UNFICYP. Penetration of UN activities into the everyday lives of Cypriots through patrolling streets and countryside, and guarding Nicosia’s stores and hotels imposed a sense of law and order on Cypriots in a lawless and disorderly state (Stegenga, 1970, p. 6). Apart from those activities, UNFICYP undertook a role of a link between two hostile communities. Several projects aimed at encouraging Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots to face each other in public life were carried out (Stegenga, 1970, p. 8). However, those projects, presuming bi-communality of primordially distinct two ethnicities, included the excluded as excluded in the lives of each community. In other words, in the process of coming together, for both of the communities, the differentiation of inside/outside is instituted. As Agamben suggested (as cited in Dillon & Reid, 2000) distinction between “us” and “other” was secured by including the excluded as “the other” (The Bare Life of Sovereign Power section, para. 8). Therefore, after a period of mutual killings and in an environment of distrust, when those two ethnicities face each other, they attach themselves to their communities for the sake of security.

De-facto transformation of the functions of UN peacekeeping after the 1974 Turkish occupation of the island caused irrevocable segregation of the two communities. UNFICYP, by 1974, turned from a force spread throughout the island into a one that protects the demarcation line cutting whole island into two pieces (James, 1989, p. 484). In order to stop violence and to prevent recurrences of fighting, UN peacekeepers were interposed between two antagonistic communities as a part of ‘de-confrontation’ process (Stegenga, 1970, p. 9).

Therefore, that kind of foreign intervention furthered the bi-communality on Cyprus which was already institutionalized by the 1960 Constitution. New phase of involvement that had begun in 1963 consolidated it by defining the conflict as inter-communal between two primordially distinct ethnicities. Hence, there is a reciprocal relationship between the objectification of the Cypriot population via internationalization of the Cyprus conflict and the government of Cypriot identities.

Analysis of the power relations directed upon Cypriots: Power relations could only be analyzed by exposing the exercise of power. In order to do so, one needs not to look for the source of power, but to investigate by what means the power is exercised (Foucault, 1983, p. 217). Foucault (1983) further pointed out some tools to analyze power relations which are the degrees of rationalization, the system of differentiations, the types of objectives, the forms of institutionalization, and the means of bringing power relations into being (p. 223).

I

Bauman argued that since our response to death remains traumatic due to our inability to comprehend it, dichotomizing pairs are means to overcome that ambivalence (as cited in Vayrynen, 2004, p. 128). Binary oppositions, by fixing the limits of interpretation, conceal the ambiguities of any given dichotomy. Those pairs, boundaries, distinctions, inside-outside explanations provide us with the necessary interpretation to rationalize the ambiguities and contradictions of modern world (Vayrynen, 2004, p. 129). Conflict and peace dichotomy is the binary pair that let us to overcome the discontinuities in the field of peacebuilding. In any given society, if conflict erupts, the international community deems it necessary to intervene and transform that society. However, even if the peace is attained intervention is not terminated because of the possibility of relapsing back into the conflict. Thus, continuous surveillance is rationalized.

Since 1964, for many times, changing dynamics of the Cyprus conflict rendered UN peacekeeping to alter its functions. However, its mandates have never been re-defined by the UN Security Council (James, 1989, p. 485). That pragmatic and illegal nature of UNFICYP couldn’t have been legitimized without the discourse of peace/conflict. Another discontinuity was embedded in UN mediation of the Cyprus conflict. In June 1992, during the proximity talks held in New York City, UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali by departing traditional low-profile UN mediation strongly asserted that the status-quo in the island cannot be maintained (Bolukbasi, 1995, p. 460). The pressure put on both community leaders reflected UN’s departure from its traditional impartial policy which had been prevalent for three decades. Discontinuity between Cold War and post-Cold War peacebuilding was not problematized, and norms and principles of peacebuilding modified rapidly.

II

The system of differentiations is composed of constructed binary oppositions which rationalize several hegemonic undertakings. Those differentiations are both reasons and results of power relations. They “permit one to act upon the actions of others” (Foucault, 1983, p. 223). In the case of global governmentality of Cyprus, they take the form of binary oppositions between the intervened, Cypriots, and the interveners who are the economically developed states and societies based on neo-liberal norms of Western periphery. That dichotomy constructs the differentiation of enlightened, safe areas of the globe vs. dark regions lapsed into violent conflicts. On the one hand, market democracies are portrayed as models of welfare and security; on the other hand, regions imbued with conflict are ghettoized (Pugh, 2004, p. 47). Another key differentiation is inside/outside dichotomy. It is perceived that causes of problems in excluded regions stem from their own culture, or political system. Thus, superior market democracies shall not feel any guilt with those conflicts assuming that there is no causative link between “our” actions and “their” wars (Bellamy, 2004, p. 28). Furthermore, perception of zones of conflicts as “excluded” preserves and consolidates powers of Western nation-states in global governance (Dillon & Reid, 2000, first section, para. 13).

III

Those who act upon the actions of others have several types of objectives. In the case of Cyprus, there are three types of objectives that are pursued by hegemon: riot control, consolidation of Westphalian international system, and enhancement of geo-strategic interests.

UN peacebuilding during the Cold War took a form of riot control targeted on unruly states which threatened the existing order. Thus, peacekeepers aimed to preserve order by keeping tensions minimal during which problem-solving adjustments can occur (Pugh, 2004, p. 40). Those problem-solving tactics were usually composed of preventing open-violence, monitoring cease-fires and status-quos which were complemented by low-profile mediation and negotiation activities of whose success depended upon independent external variables (Richmond, 2001a, p. 320). Hence, conflict resolution during the Cold War could be defined as transformation of conflict into peaceful, non-violent process of social and political change (Richmond, 2001a, pp. 326-327). That definition was confirmed by UN peacekeeping activities in Cyprus. In the cases of conflict, UN troops only attempted to halt the violence by situating themselves between the sides. They also aimed to deter violence by continuous patrolling and reporting the incidents to the headquarters (Lindley, 2001, p. 78). Thus, UNFICYP served to preserve order rather than to make peace. Even after 1974, peacekeeping activities were limited to preventing armed build-ups in and along the buffer zone, hindering provocations across the zone, and precluding unauthorized civilians from entering to the zone (Lindley, 2001, p. 85). Those clearly show that UNFICYP aimed at defusing the crisis, thus, being “a barrier against an unwanted war” (James, 1989, p. 500).

During 1960s Cypriot diplomats sought to acquire a UN resolution which would refer to the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the Cyprus Republic without the threat of foreign intervention (Coufoudakis, 1976, p. 465). Since Cyprus was a UN member since its independence in 1960 and UN Charter responded to all concerns of Cypriot diplomats, what was the motive behind their undertakings at UN General Assembly? Those diplomatic attempts exposed the discontinuities, in other words the gray areas of the international system. As Richmond (2004, pp. 86-87) argued, peacekeeping intends to protect the Westphalian international system by concealing the problems that occur in the grey areas of the system such as the discrepancy between popular and legal definitions of self-determination and national minorities. Another mean to protect the system is replication of it. Peace-builders promote an internationally sanctioned model of legitimate domestic governance, which is based on state-centrism and neo-liberal values, in war-shattered states in which they are deployed (Paris, 2002, p. 650). Thus, particular type of governance is globalized. That reproduction of particularity serves the interests of dominant powers. Peacebuilding “reproduce the frameworks that underpin the socio-political and international system that its proponents are constituting and are constituted by” (Richmond, 2001a, Problems with These Approaches section, para. 3). That kind of reproduction was obvious in UN mediation efforts of the Cyprus conflict. Normative standard in mediation process was the infallibility of the Cyprus state (Richmond, 1998, p. 133). If unitary Cyprus was partitioned legally into two, the Westphalian system would be jeopardized and destabilized. Therefore, all points of departure during mediations since 1964 to present were about the federative degree of unitary Cyprus state (Fisher, 2001, p. 312) which was within the limits of Westphalian principles. The latest outcome of those efforts was the Annan Plan which was formulated on the basis of consociational power-sharing model in one state. The plan envisages autonomy and confederal arrangements for both communities together with highly proportional electoral system (Sozen, 2005, p. 72).

During the Turkish occupation of Cyprus in 1974, UNFICYP declared Nicosia airport a UN Protected Area in order to forestall Turkish capture of the airport (James, 1989, p. 492). UN troops, who kept inaction during Turkish military occupation of northern countryside of Cyprus, responded and fought back for the strategically crucial Nicosia airport. That incident reflects that UNFICYP deployed on the island to serve Western geo-strategic interests rather than Cypriot ones. In other words, formation of international organizations to deal with security threats posed by states in conflict, and their intervention to those unruly geographies are motivated by perceived geo-strategic and economic interests of the hegemon (Dillon & Reid, 2000, first section, para. 13). Moreover, when the violence erupted in Cyprus on December 1963, dominant powers rapidly sought to protect their geo-strategic concerns against the perceived threats posed by failed Cyprus Republic. UK and USA introduced the idea of peacekeeping through which the escalation of conflict would be precluded, the south-eastern flank of NATO would be preserved, and the Soviet involvement in Mediterranean would be negated (Richmond, 1998, p. 92).

IV

Institutionalized apparatuses are integral part of power relations. In the case of global government of Cypriot population, there are two forms of institutions with their own regulations and structures that can be categorized as “elite-led Cold War” on Cyprus, and “emerging strategic complexes”.

The term “elite-led Cold War” on Cyprus was coined by Richmond (2004, p. 86) to define big power agreement to prevent regional escalation of conflict. Since the establishment of UNFICYP, there is a flexible cooperation between two rival powers. USSR joined Western powers in extending the mandate of UN force in Cyprus in every three months. Moreover, USSR gave its consent to the de-facto alteration of UN peacekeeping functions on Cyprus after 1974 (James, 1989, p. 485). More crucially, at the dawn of Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, USSR, which had the image of staunch supporter of Cypriot sovereignty, had refrained from defending it (Coufoudakis, 1976, p. 471). Despite its loose structure and being dependent on flexible tacit approval of the one side, “elite-led Cold War” nurtured the global government of Cypriot population.

“Emerging strategic complexes” as a response to perceived threats emanating from political emergencies are formed by a strange alliance of nation-states, international organizations, international non-governmental organizations, and local civil society. Increasingly overlapped discourses of security and development rationalized their intervention to turbulent societies (Dillon & Reid, 2000, paras. 7-12). Despite its’ hierarchical regulations, and sophisticated structure, that division of labor accelerated and strengthened the surveillance of Cypriot population. It is such a complex that brings “unusual blend of soldiers, diplomats, policemen, and civilian staffers and technicians” under the roof of UNFICYP (Stegenga, 1970, p. 6). It makes possible the involvement of variety of third parties ranging from representatives of United Nations and European Union, and UN Secretary-Generals to foreign ministers of USA and UK to involve in mediation process, as was also observed by Fisher (2001, p. 312). There is such a complementary relationship among the bodies of the complex that UN peacekeeping and UN mediation can rationalize each other’s functions (Richmond, 2001b, p. 102). “Emerging strategic complexes” even has its’ own logic of authority. Although UNFICYP is technically responsible to the UN Security Council, in fact UN Secretary-General decides on substantive issues (Stegenga, 1970, p. 6).

V

Instrument of bringing power relations into being is “strategic conflict management”; a never-ending task of peacebuilding. Cypriots are enforced to participate in conflict resolution activities by the effect of UN discourse. Those activities consist of third party mediation and negotiation, inter-communal talks under the auspices of UN, shuttle diplomacy, UN Secretary-General good offices, UN humanitarian works, and so on. Once Cypriots become subject to those activities, means of bringing power relations on Cypriots into being becomes possible. UNSC Resolution 186 was decisive in creating such a comprehensive conflict settlement structure. Peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding activities are executed simultaneously on Cyprus (Richmond, 2001b, p. 102).

The most powerful discourse that entrapped Cypriots in conflict resolution activities is the one of international recognition and legitimacy. Since the Turkish-Cypriot leaders considered themselves lacking only recognition and equality, which can only be supplied by the United Nations, they could not risk being isolated from the UN framework. On the other hand, Greek-Cypriot leadership had to be in good terms with the UN to prevent Turks to get what they want (Richmond, 1998, p. 154). Moreover, ability of Greek-Cypriot politicians to exercise power on Turkish-Cypriot leadership stem from the fact that they were recognized by the UN as legitimate government of Cyprus (Richmond, 1998, pp. 181-82).

Analysis of the Cypriot resistance: Since forms of resistance are forged against power relations, they can be used as a catalyst in order to bring power relations to light, locate their positions, and discover their application and methods used (Foucault, 1983, p. 211). Those oppositions, in other words anti-authority struggles have some features. First of all, their aim is not to attack particular groups, institutions, or class, but the power effects, in other words specific form of power. Those struggles are anarchistic in nature. Because they cannot find “the chief enemy” due to its complexity, they criticize and attack “the immediate enemy”. In addition, those oppositions do not expect to find a solution to their problems, but to demonstrate their discomfort with present situation. Their most crucial characteristic is the struggle against “the government of individualization”, against the control and transformation of their identity. They also reject the imposition of certain forms of knowledge. The truth, through which power circulates, is questioned.  In short, anti-authority struggles are spontaneously formed against being subjectivized (Foucault, 1983, pp. 211-12).

On the level of Cypriot leadership, the most obvious resistance had been performed by Cypriot diplomats. Especially after 1963 when Turkish-Cypriots were forced to withdraw from governmental offices, diplomats had tried to annul the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance within the framework of UN in order to secure independence and sovereignty of Cyprus (Bolukbasi, 1998, p. 412). Those treaties are means to intervene in domestic affairs of Cyprus. Power relations are employed through the legitimacy created by those treaties. Thus, attempts by diplomats were the struggles against a technique of power rather than its source. Furthermore, essays to abrogate those agreements demonstrate Cypriot struggle against subjectivization, since those treaties treated Cypriot population as a mere object to be acted upon.

One shall not perceive the Greek-Cypriot attacks on Turkish-Cypriots as mere hatred towards another ethnicity. Those acts could also be interpreted as revolts against the government of individualization. The more UN imposed the negative peace, the more international community ordered Cypriots how to behave, the more their antagonism increased. For example, when the National Guard launched an attack on Turkish-Cypriots on August 1964 which was retaliated by Turkish air-force, UN Security Council immediately appealed for a cease-fire and enforced it. However, after a short period of calmness the National Guard initiated another violent attack on November 1967 (Lindley, 2001, pp. 80-81). Leaving indefensible acts of those paramilitary groups apart, it is a fact that they were subject to a form of power. As those groups wanted to break the state of negative peace and status-quo, it is further imposed on them. As a result, they fought back as much as possible, and as long as they found means to escape from the global governmentality.

A thousand incidents in the buffer zone that occur every year further reflects the Cypriot protest of imposed bi-communal order. Those incidents usually include stone-throwing to the other side, verbal harassment and insults between the two sides, illegal encroachments in to the buffer zone, and non-lethal gun shootings (Lindley, 2001, pp. 85-87). Responses by UNFICYP, which are composed of attempts to calm down the tensions and ordering both sides to back down, further constraint the Cypriot conduct telling him/her how to behave. Therefore, Cypriot demonstrations of discomfort turn out to be unpredictable and ungovernable. Demonstrations beginning with display of lack of discipline can end up in gunfights as happened on April 1993 (Lindley, 2001, p. 88). Furthermore, a major motorcyclist demonstration of August 1996, which was another display of outmost discomfort with present situation, led to two deaths and many injuries (Lindley, 2001, p. 90). It is obvious that those anarchistic demonstrations aimed destabilizing the imposed order on Cyprus, protesting the enforced segregation of communities, and they did not seek to solve the problem, but only to express it.

Shootings and stone-throwing between the sides meant more than an inter-ethnic antagonism. Each side perceived the other as responsible of the current negative peace. Because the sophisticated structure of global governmentality obscures actual culprits, enemy behind the border becomes an easy target. Furthermore, UN peacekeepers also become subject to those attacks and harassments. The demonstrators may throw rocks, bottles, and even molotov cocktails to UNFICYP personnel out of opportunity (Lindley, 2001, p. 89).

Part II

As Foucault (cited in Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983, pp. 202-204) argued that because power cannot be held and maintained at a centre or in particular institutions, they become effective as long as being exercised. Execution of power relations becomes possible through several discourses. Those discourses legitimize certain actions while de-legitimizing others. As the regime of truth produced by subjectivizing discourses is taken for granted by Cypriots, they open the pave for a variety of possible actions to be acted upon themselves.

Zones of indistinction as “the excluded” which are separated from “the exceptional self” are crucial to construct the inside/outside dichotomy, which serves the consolidation and maintenance of the sovereign power. Construction of prevailing state of anarchy somewhere “outside” but close enough to affect “inside” deems necessary the strategic formation of the state of emergency at “inside”. Distinction of chaos and normal conditions specifies the domains of anarchy, lawlessness, dislocation as opposed to the domains of peace, justice, and belongingness. In the case of global governmentality, that system of differentiations is produced between political systems, cultures, and populations rather than nations and states (Dillon & Reid, 2000, The Bare Life of Sovereign Power section, para. 5).

Dichotomy of zones of peace/zones of conflict is the fundamental discourse that lets other regimes of truth to be built upon in order to make the global governmentality possible. It is the presentation of Cyprus as plunged into an inter-communal ethnic conflict that required “intervention from” and “surveillance of” the regimes of peace and stability.

Peace operation is required to be successful fulfilling its mandates in order to justify future operations. Thus, the longer the operation takes, the less successful it might be. Thus, the deployment of UNFICYP over forty years shall represent a failure. However, Debrix (1999a, pp. 216-218) has argued that its representation is not significant for its assessment. If peacekeeping is evaluated from the perspective of simulation rather than its referentiality, peace operations turn out to be great achievements for global security. That is achieved through promoting images of virtual peace. Concealing the real effects of peace operations and believing in ideological configurations of keeping, building, and enforcing peace simulates peacekeeping as eminent and essential operation. Therefore, continuous surveillance of Cypriot population via UNFICYP is perceived as a precondition for peace and prevention of relapsing back to conflict.

Another effect of virtual peace is hiding structural causes of conflicts. “The discourses… neglect the political understanding of violence and its sources, and reduce political violence into technical problems to be solved by outside expertise” (Vayrynen, 2004, p. 130). Since representation of peacebuilding does not matter due to its virtual realization, then why peacekeepers invest time and energy in understanding real causes of inter-ethnic violence when they are able to seem to be solving the problems. That is what happened in Cyprus. Structural causes of inter-communal violence in Cyprus go back to the British colonial policies and were further augmented by direct foreign intervention (Pollis, 1978, p. 74). However, they were neglected, and what prescribed for Cyprus is highly federative, consociational state, and bi-communal, segregated society (United Nations [UN], 2004), despite the fact that the conflicts had not aroused out of absence of such a federative state system in Cyprus.

Dividing the globe into the zones of affluence and of anarchy depict particular cultures superior to the rest. Thus, peacebuilding might be interpreted as the white mans burden; an updated version of the mission civilisatrice which assumes that the developed market democracies of the West have a moral responsibility to “civilize” backward people, and to enlighten the dark regions of the globe. Despite the current practice of peacebuilding is pristine from brutal acts of the colonial times, assistance that is provided by peace operations comes with an ideological attachment that restructures political systems and cultures of subjectivized populations (Paris, 2002, pp. 651-53).

Assistance to war-shattered societies also promotes what Lacy (2003, p. 634) called “sentimental moral equilibrium” of the West. Acting as the sole power in trying to solve global problems, moral security of the West is enhanced because it becomes “the responsible” global authority. Therefore, the sense of Western superiority embedded in the global governmentality is furthered again by global governance.

Global governmentality cannot function without the discourses of “ideal” norms and governance. Subjectivized populations have to perceive particular norms and form of governance as universally good in order to give consent to the imposition of those norms and form of governance on themselves. Promoting that perception is achieved through the globalization of those norms and model of governance. And, in the globalization of particularity UN activities have a crucial role. As Paris (2002) pointed out, what is happening through UN peacebuilding is the globalization of the idea of ideal state formation and functioning. UN peacebuilding presents the liberal market democracy as “an internationally-sanctioned model of legitimate domestic governance” (p. 639). Thus, UN peacebuilding is more than a tool of conflict management; it is “a transmission belt” conveying the standards of the core to the periphery (Paris, 2002, pp. 650-53). In other words, UN peacebuilding defines and sets the standards of “normal behavior”, disciplining the defective which is the task of a psychiatrist in modern societies according to Foucault (1988b, pp. 179-210).

Examples above are the disciplinary agents and discourses of panoptic governance. Power is exercised through them without centralized power structures. That is why disciplinary power cannot be recognized by the disciplined subject. It is embedded in sophisticated networks, and obscured by regimes of truth (Debrix, 1999b, pp. 290-91). What Dillon & Reid (2000) called “emerging strategic complexes” is an example of those systems functioning with the legitimacy provided by several discourses such as peace/conflict dichotomy, and through the disciplinary agents such as UN peacebuilding. Furthermore, evaluating international affairs in the contexts of disciplinarity, governmentality, and panopticism renders us to interpret the continuous surveillance of societies in conflict by UN agencies, in other words the global governmentality, as an attempt to normalize international political behavior (Debrix, 1999b, p. 291). However, that surveillance is applied to not only states, but also populations and individuals. That is why UNFICYP precipitates responses not only from community leaders, but also from ordinary Cypriots whose life is tried to be disciplined. Hence, UNFICYP is a mechanism to insert and establish a form of administration and continuous regulation of everyday life. Therefore, UN peacebuilding as a disciplinary agent of the global governmentality is a panoptic technology which, in terms of Foucault (as cited in Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983), has the ability “to make the spread of power efficient; to make possible the exercise of power with limited manpower at the least cost; to discipline individuals with the least exertion of overt force by operating on their souls; to increase to a maximum the visibility of those subjected; to involve in its functioning all those who come in contact with the apparatus” (p. 192).

Conclusion

In order to comprehend the functions of UNFICYP as the ones of a psychiatrist, the latter had to be examined. Foucault’s work (1983) on the genealogy of expert psychiatric opinion in penal cases is extremely helpful in discovering the role of psychiatrist in modern societies.

Expert psychiatric opinion is highly effective in legitimizing the transformation and normalization of individuals. It does so, first, by “transferring the application of punishment from the offense defined by law to criminality evaluated from a psychologico-moral point of view” (p. 18). This is achieved through two processes. First, the offense is mentioned redundantly in order to constitute it as an individual trait rather than as something acted. Second, standards such as an optimum level of development (psychological immaturity, profound imbalance), moral qualities, and ethical rules are created in order to evaluate the forms of conduct (p. 16). Transformation of individual is legitimized, secondly, by turning the author of the crime from a legal subject to “an object of a technology and knowledge of rectification, readaptation, reinsertion, and correction”. Expert psychiatric opinion attains it by blurring the status of the legal subject, in other words by establishing juridical indiscernibility around the responsibility of the author of the crime (pp. 20-21). Third function of expert psychiatric opinion is the constitution of a doctor-judge. Psychiatric expertise transforms the accused to the convicted by demonstrating his potential criminality embedded in his character. Furthermore, those measures constitute homogenous social response justifying continuous protection of social body by means ranging from medical treatment to penal institutions. However, that response is neither aimed at an illness nor at a crime. It is aimed at the dangerous individual who is not completely ill or criminal. Thus, it is that combination of perversion and danger that legitimizes continuous intervention of medico-judicial institutions on individuals (pp. 33-34). Merging of medical and judicial is made possible by the discourse of fear whose objective is to detect and counter the social danger (p. 35). Social danger stems from a partly ill, partly criminal individual who is exactly “abnormal”. Defining the abnormal paves the way for activities to normalize that abnormal individual (pp. 41-42). Normalization, however, shall not be perceived as something negative whose primary objective is to preserve and repress. On the contrary, it is a positive technique of intervention and transformation, a discipline of normalization (pp. 49-50).

Psychiatry as medical discipline has been endowed with particular mechanisms of power such as the compulsory hospitalization order. Confinement of the insane and continuous surveillance of him in a psychiatric institution requires three conditions. First, medical institution shall be established with the objective to accept, and then to cure the ill. Second, hospitalization shall be legitimized by particular public administration accompanied by medical reports. Third, hospitalization shall be motivated by mentally ill condition of an individual which threatens public order and social security. Those developments give psychiatry the authority to determine if the individual is capable of creating social disorder or danger, unlike the previous authority to decide whether he is responsible of his act or not (pp. 140-41).

Generalization of psychiatry needs a justification and a rationalization to intervene on abnormal individuals without being required to explain pathological processes of that abnormality. Once that becomes possible, psychiatrists are able to implement techniques of normalization on all abnormal individuals without demonstrating the actual, but only potential, symptoms of illness or madness (p. 307).

To sum up, psychiatry claims a role of social defense by becoming the scientific discipline for social protection. It essays social interventions and controls in the name of justice and management of abnormalities. It lays claim to be “the general body for the defense of society against the dangers that undermine it from within” (p. 316).

In the case of the global governmentality of Cypriot population, legitimization of disciplinary interventions is accomplished in a same way that expert psychiatric opinion has done so for the management of abnormalities. Activities of UNFICYP resemble the punishment of Cypriots not because of an offense they exercised, but because of their condition. Cyprus had not violated any principle in the UN Charter. It did not violate the rights of another sovereign nation-state, nor did it threaten to use of force against political independence or territorial integrity of another state. Only felony of Cyprus was to be entrapped in an intra-state conflict, and facing to be a failed state. Inter-communal conflicts, civil wars, and failed states are stigmatized concepts in the field of international relations. Despite the fact that those conditions are not breaches of international law, they constitute a condition of being politically under-developed compared to other established nation-states. Thus, in order to justify intervention into those states to transform them, states like Cyprus are evaluated on the basis of moral and ethical standards. For example, a failed state is perceived as unable to provide universally required services and rights to its citizens. Those moral qualities detract attention from the acts of Cyprus, and focus on the nature of its being, its qualities. By doing so, a shift from “the punishment based on an offense defined by law” to “the criminality evaluated from a psychologico-moral point of view” is successfully achieved.

Moreover, international community does not try to find out the responsible of Cyprus’ state of being. By overlooking the pathological processes behind the “dangerous” characteristics of Cypriot state and society, Cyprus as a whole was turned into a state which is object to the corrections and reinstitutions of UNFICYP. A lack of need to demonstrate the causes of problems brings a lack of need to provide evidence for actual adverse effects of those problems. For example, if one believes in supremacy of a nation-state based on liberal normative value systems, he will conceive of the collapse of such a state as something dangerous and undesired. Thus, he does not need to see the occurrence of offense as long as he sees a way of being which is stigmatized. It does not matter how Cypriot state failed, how Cypriot society fell into a civil war, or how those developments affected the international order, but how they might affect it in the future. Therefore, normalization of dangerous Cypriot population is rationalized without the need to demonstrate the dangers that are posed by them. Potential outcomes, which can be pre-emptively responded, rather than actual ones matter. Hence, Cypriot population is turned into a “dangerous individual”. Fear of intra-state conflict de-stabilizing the Westphalian international order is the main discourse behind the perception of “dangerous population”. International community is afraid of Cypriots who problematize the normative value systems of liberal market democracies by terminating the imposed peace and destroying a state created on the basis of liberal presumptions. If collapsed Cyprus state, which used to be structured on the basis of federative and consociational model, and a society, which failed to unite in diversity, were perceived as threats to universal legitimacy of state-centrist liberal norms and values, then, it becomes legitimate to define Cypriot population as dangerous and to normalize the abnormal Cypriots. Likewise, once it is claimed that Cyprus in conflict carries the danger of escalation to regional conflict that might destabilize the global order, then, it becomes imperative to intervene in Cyprus in the name of protecting international society of nation-states from disorder.

When potential global implications of inter-communal conflict in failed Cyprus is analyzed, instrumental rationality requires suggesting policies and means to alter prevalent conditions, a task being undertaken by peace studies. What is extremely crucial in those analyzes is the unpredictability of how and when the nature of Cypriot state and society will pose the actual problem. Hence, pre-emptive response becomes imperative. Therefore, a huge field of possible interventions by strange alliance of institutions such as “emerging strategic complexes” is opened. Abnormal Cypriot state shall be normalized. However, the process of normalization will not be a negative one. It will be an application of positive power by re-promoting peace in Cyprus and re-establishing a state which will be a replication of the Western model.

There are several preconditions of normalization process, of “promoting peace” in Cyprus. First of all, there shall be institutions which have the legitimate task of transformation and surveillance. UNFICYP operating under the authority of the United Nations is a perfect match for such a job. Apart from that, those activities are required to be legitimized by a group of expertise. Academic works, reports by inter-governmental institutions and peacekeeping personnel fulfill that necessity. Finally, transformation and surveillance activities are motivated by the threat posed by Cyprus. It is the conditions of Cypriots that precipitate the intervention.

In conclusion, similarities between the functions of UNFICYP and psychiatrist suggests that UNFICYP has the role to protect the social body which is international system based on Westphalian principles against the threats posed from within which are the collapse of regional balance of power and de-legitimization of universally accepted norms. Thus, the dangerous individual in that case is the Cypriot population. Finally, the technique that is exercised by UNFICYP in the government of dangerous Cypriot population is panoptic and disciplinary in its nature.

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