When Do UN Peacekeeping Operations Implement Their Mandates?

Blair, Robert A.; Salvatore, Jessica Di; Smidt, Hannah

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3529177

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Building on recent work unpacking identities of UN peacekeeping operations, my study highlights ways in which some contributors to multidimensional peacekeeping operations may be more effective than others (Bove and Ruggeri 2019;Bove, Ruffa and Ruggeri 2020). These findings complement existing work documenting the efficacy of civilian-led efforts to support domestic institutions in post-conflict settings (Matanock 2017;Blair, Di Salvatore and Smidt 2020;) and the well-established capacity of peacekeepers to protect civilians from armed group violence (Fjelde, Hultman and Nilsson 2019;Hultman, Kathman and Shannon 2020).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Peace is in the Eye of the Beholder: How Perceptions of Impartiality Shape Peacekeeping Outcomes

Nomikos¹

2021

Preprint

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Despite the abundance of evidence that UN peacekeepers limit armed group violence during and after civil wars, we know relatively little about the ability of these peacekeepers to contain more localized forms of violence between non-state actors. Given the rise in atrocities and mass displacements from communal violence across theAfrican continent over the past few years, evaluating the effectiveness of peacekeepingat this level is a pressing concern. This article demonstrates that peacekeeping troopsprevent the onset of communal violence. I use data from a survey experiment conducted in Mali to show that the likely explanation for the e?ffectiveness of UN peacekeepers is that locals see them as impartial. I discuss the implications for understanding the effectiveness of UN peacekeepers from di?erent cultural backgrounds. The paper concludes that UN peacekeepers may limit the outbreak of communal violence even in the most challenging settings.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Peace is in the Eye of the Beholder: How Perceptions of Impartiality Shape Peacekeeping Outcomes

Nomikos¹

2021

Preprint

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“…the UN Security Council resolutions authorizing a PKO) for two reasons. First, relying on mandates alone would lead to a failure to capture peacekeepers’ activities on the ground because the activities that PKOs do can diverge from the activities that are authorized in their mandates (Blair et al, 2019). Second, reports are published more regularly than mandates, usually four times a year and sometimes weekly, for example, in the case of UNPROFOR in 1992 (UNPROFOR in Bosnia, 1992).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keeping electoral peace? Activities of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their effects on election-related violence

Smidt

2020

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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In war-torn countries, elections are held to support peacebuilding, but they sometimes trigger new violence. While peacekeeping operations (PKOs) regularly accompany electoral periods, we lack systematic knowledge on how they influence election-related violence. I argue that variation in peacekeepers’ activities is fundamentally important: only if PKOs assist with securing and organizing elections can they reduce election-related violence. Using novel data on PKOs’ election-related activities and accounting for endogeneity in both peacekeeping deployment and activities, the analyses of all 630 elections in conflict-affected countries support this expectation. The result implies that the design of PKOs is crucial for effectively managing post-war political transitions.

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“…Rule-of-law reform demands "dedicated capacities" (UN Secretary-General 2006, 1-2, 8) and "specialized expertise" (HIPPO 2015, 41). Assigning personnel specifically to rule-of-law-related tasks is especially important in missions with complex, multidimensional mandates, where potentially competing goals can undermine the mission's ability to pursue any of them effectively (Blair, di Salvatore, and Smidt 2020). By assigning personnel specifically to rule-oflaw-related tasks, missions help ensure that rule-oflaw promotion remains a priority even as mandated tasks proliferate.…”

Section: Personnel: Capacity and Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…UN missions exercise discretion over these tactical and operational decisions, allowing them to execute their mandates in unintended and unanticipated ways (Barnett and Finnemore 1999, 699). As Blair, di Salvatore, and Smidt (2020) show, the extent to which a given UN mission even attempts to fulfill the tasks assigned to it in its mandate can fluctuate dramatically from one year to the next. These fluctuations constitute an important but understudied source of peacekeeping success or failure (Lipson 2010).…”

Section: Activities: Mandate Implementation and Engagement With Host mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Not coincidentally, previous studies have found that peacekeeping operations are less successful during periods of conflict than periods of peace (Doyle and Sambanis 2006;Gilligan and Sergenti 2008). Challenges that UN missions struggle to overcome in peacetime become even more intractable in the "fog of war," including culture clashes, turf battles, and coordination problems both between and within civilian and uniformed contingents (Blair, di Salvatore, and Smidt 2020), which comprise personnel from diverse settings, with disparate levels of training and expertise. This is especially problematic for the UN's rule-of-law agenda, which requires carefully coordinating efforts to reform the four links in the justice chain simultaneously.…”

Section: Timingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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UN Peacekeeping and the Rule of Law

Blair

2020

Am Polit Sci Rev

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The UN is intimately involved in efforts to restore the rule of law in conflict and postconflict settings. Yet despite the importance of the rule of law for peace, good governance, and economic growth, evidence on the impact of these efforts is scant. I develop a theory to explain when UN rule-of-law reform is likely to succeed, then test the theory using original datasets capturing the number of civilian personnel deployed to each UN mission in Africa, the number of personnel assigned specifically to rule-of-law-related tasks, and the extent and nature of actual rule-of-law-related activities in the field. The correlation between UN presence and the rule of law is weak while conflict is ongoing, but robustly positive during periods of peace. The relationship is stronger for civilian than uniformed personnel, and is strongest when UN missions engage host states in the process of reform.

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When Do UN Peacekeeping Operations Implement Their Mandates?

Cited by 8 publications

References 38 publications

Peace is in the Eye of the Beholder: How Perceptions of Impartiality Shape Peacekeeping Outcomes

Peace is in the Eye of the Beholder: How Perceptions of Impartiality Shape Peacekeeping Outcomes

Keeping electoral peace? Activities of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their effects on election-related violence

UN Peacekeeping and the Rule of Law

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