The article identifies a gap in peacekeeping studies. Scholars have not explicitly related peace operations to theories of knowledge that inform debates in International Relations about the nature of world politics. Peacekeeping's hybridity in IR theory was perhaps related to its Cold War exceptionalism and marginalization. Further, as a curiosity in military affairs, soldiers and scholars were chiefly concerned about whether it did any good and how it could be improved upon. Deference to policy prescription also accompanied the steady militarization of peacekeeping and its transformation into peace operations after the Cold War. Signs of change have begun to emerge with studies of peace operations as simulacra of peace, and with critical theory that portrays peace operations as essential to the ideology of ‘liberal peace’.