Sequencing United Nations peacemaking: Political initiatives and peacekeeping operations

Abstract

The UN has developed a diverse range of peacemaking tools, including different forms of political initiatives (diplomatic, technocratic, and political-development missions) and peacekeeping operations. Yet we know surprisingly little about when and why we observe the onset of different types of UN missions. Examining an “escalatory trajectory,” we analyze the United Nations Peace Initiatives data, a new dataset providing information on all different types of UN engagements. Our main contributions are that we provide insights into how the different types of missions relate to one another and conceptual clarity about what the different types of missions are.