Friktion i fredsoperationer: De globala, nationella och glokala freds- och säkerhetsdiskurserna gällande Afghanistaninsatsen under åren 2010–2012

This study focuses on friction between global, national and glocal actors and discourses regarding the military operation in Afghanistan, with the delimitation to the years 2010-2012. The study aims to explain and gain a deeper understanding of the friction between global, national and glocal actors that exists in peace operations and to further develop the theory about global and local friction in peace operations. The study is an abductive case study where the theory about global and local friction has been applied to the case of the peace operation in Afghanistan in order to present a deeper understanding of the friction between global, national and glocal actors and peace- and security discourses. This study’s theoretical framework has been revised in an interplay with the empirical findings. The study has been inspired by research on glocalization and the definition of friction is based on Carl von Clausewitz and Gearoid Millar’s definitions of friction. The global, national and glocal peace- and security discourses analyzed in this study have been studied through government- and policy document from 2010 to 2012, and through narratives from Afghanistan collected by interviews with Swedish military personnel which has served in Afghanistan sometime between 2010 and 2012. The empirical material has been analyzed by using discourse analysis and searching for discursive nodes within the discursive categories of positive and negative peace, and traditional and human security. The result of the study reveals frictions between the global and national actors on the one hand and the glocal actor on the other hand, especially when it comes to understandings and perceptions of security, and hence security discourses. To conclude, friction as examined in this study, can be explained by a gap between on the one hand, the mandate of UN security council resolutions to be shaping the global security discourse and the national policy documents guiding Swedish peacekeepers on the ground and what glocal actors find possible to implement in reality, and thus a difference in the goal setting and what tasks that are prioritized