Stopping the Killing During the “Peace”: Peacekeeping and the Severity of Postconflict Civilian Victimization

Kathman, Jacob D.; Wood, Reed M.

doi:10.1111/fpa.12041

Cited by 41 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…However, when making a distinction between violence by rebel and government actors, our results show that the more peacekeeping forces deployed to a location, the less likely that rebel groups will carry out attacks in these areas. We do not find the same encouraging results for the government side: local peacekeeping 5 Hultman, Kathman, and Shannon 2013;Kathman and Wood 2016. 6 Bove and Ruggeri 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians

Fjelde¹,

Hultman²,

Nilsson³

2018

Int Org

141

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Are UN peacekeepers effective in protecting civilians from violence? Existing studies examine this issue at the country level, thereby making it difficult to isolate the effect of peacekeepers and to assess the actual mechanism at work. This article provides the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level. We argue that peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political and military costs for warring actors to engage in civilian targeting. Since peacekeepers' access to civilian populations rests on government consent, peacekeepers will primarily be effective in imposing these costs on rebel groups, but less so for government actors. To test these conjectures we combine new monthly data on the location of peacekeepers with data on the location and timing of civilian killings in Africa. Our findings suggest that local peacekeeping presence enhances the effectiveness of civilian protection against rebel abuse, but that UN peacekeeping struggles to protect civilians from government forces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians

Fjelde¹,

Hultman²,

Nilsson³

2018

Int Org

141

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“…Several studies show that civilian victimization can be prevented only if the peace mission intervenes by explicitly targeting the perpetrators (Hultman 2010; Krain 2005). However, other scholars argue that changing the balance of power in a civil war by intervening in support of one side creates an incentive for the ‘loser’ to escalate one-sided violence (Kathman and Wood 2011; Kathman and Wood 2014). More recent studies find that UN armed personnel reduce civilian killings, but that unarmed observers are associated with increased targeting of civilians during and after the conflict (Hultman, Kathman and Shannon 2013; Kathman and Wood 2011).…”

Section: Peacekeepers and Protection Of Civiliansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Obstacle to Peace? Ethnic Geography and Effectiveness of Peacekeeping

Salvatore

2018

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Under what conditions does peacekeeping reduce one-sided violence in civil wars? This article argues that local sources of violence, particularly ethnic geography, affect peacekeeping effectiveness. Existing studies focus on the features of individual missions, yet curbing one-sided violence also depends on peacekeepers’ capacity to reduce the opportunities and incentives for violence. Moving from the idea that territorial control is a function of ethnic polarization, the article posits that peacekeepers are less effective against one-sided violence where power asymmetries are large (low polarization) because they (1) create incentives for escalation against civilians and (2) are less effective at separating/monitoring combatants. The UN mission in Sierra Leone from 1997 to 2001 is examined to show that UN troops reduce one-sided violence, but their effectiveness decreases as power asymmetries grow.

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“…Second, by focusing on how the government treats fundamental rights to physical security we assess the quality of postwar peace as experienced by the population. It complements research on how international actors affect security (Kathman and Wood, 2016;Murdie and Davis, 2010) and how war changes the economy and society more broadly. Third, by identifying the trajectory of militias during and after civil wars, we trace the strategies of these actors in postwar societies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The legacy of war: The effect of militias on postwar repression

Carey

González

2020

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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How do wartime legacies affect repression after the conflict ends? Irregular forces support the government in many civil wars. We argue that if this link continues after the war, respect for human rights declines. As ''tried and tested'' agents they are less likely to shirk when given the order to repress. Governments might also keep the militias as a ''fall-back option'', which results in more repression. Analyzing data from 1981 to 2014 shows that pro-government militias that were inherited from the previous conflict are consistently associated with worse repression, but newly created ones are not. Wartime pro-government militias target a broader spectrum of the population and are linked to worse state violence. New militias usually supplement wartime ones and use violence primarily against political opponents. This study highlights the detrimental impact of war legacies.

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Stopping the Killing During the “Peace”: Peacekeeping and the Severity of Postconflict Civilian Victimization

Cited by 41 publications

References 46 publications

Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians

Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians

Obstacle to Peace? Ethnic Geography and Effectiveness of Peacekeeping

The legacy of war: The effect of militias on postwar repression

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