IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joupea/v55y2018i6p742-758.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Better peacekeepers, better protection? Troop quality of United Nations peace operations and violence against civilians

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Haass

    (Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute & GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies)

  • Nadine Ansorg

    (University of Kent & GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies)

Abstract

Why do similarly sized peacekeeping missions vary in their effectiveness to protect civilians in conflicts? We argue that peace operations with a large share of troops from countries with high-quality militaries are better able to deter violence from state and non-state actors and create buffer zones within conflict areas, can better reach remote locations, and have superior capabilities – including diplomatic pressure by troop contributing countries – to monitor the implementation of peace agreements. These operational advantages enable them to better protect civilians. Combining data from military expenditures of troop contributing countries together with monthly data on the composition of peace operations, we create a proxy indicator for the average troop quality of UN PKOs. Statistical evidence from an extended sample of conflicts in Africa and Asia between 1991 and 2010 supports our argument.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Haass & Nadine Ansorg, 2018. "Better peacekeepers, better protection? Troop quality of United Nations peace operations and violence against civilians," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(6), pages 742-758, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:55:y:2018:i:6:p:742-758
    DOI: 10.1177/0022343318785419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343318785419
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022343318785419?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilligan, Michael J. & Sergenti, Ernest J., 2008. "Do UN Interventions Cause Peace? Using Matching to Improve Causal Inference," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 89-122, July.
    2. Camiña, Ester & Porteiro, Nicolás, 2009. "The role of mediation in peacemaking and peacekeeping negotiations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 73-92, January.
    3. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    4. Bove, Vincenzo & Ruggeri, Andrea, 2016. "Kinds of Blue: Diversity in UN Peacekeeping Missions and Civilian Protection," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 681-700, July.
    5. Khusrav Gaibulloev & Justin George & Todd Sandler & Hirofumi Shimizu, 2015. "Personnel contributions to UN and non-UN peacekeeping missions," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 52(6), pages 727-742, November.
    6. World Bank, 2015. "World Development Indicators 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21634, December.
    7. Niklas Schörnig & Alexander C. Lembcke, 2006. "The Vision of War without Casualties," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(2), pages 204-227, April.
    8. Lisa Hultman & Jacob Kathman & Megan Shannon, 2013. "United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(4), pages 875-891, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Deniz Cil & Hanne Fjelde & Lisa Hultman & Desirée Nilsson, 2020. "Mapping blue helmets: Introducing the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(2), pages 360-370, March.
    2. M Christian Lehmann, 2023. "Foreign interests and state repression: Theory and evidence from the Armenian genocide," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 60(2), pages 307-321, March.
    3. Anke Hoeffler, 2014. "Can international interventions secure the peace?," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 75-94, March.
    4. Todd Sandler, 2017. "International Peacekeeping Operations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(9), pages 1875-1897, October.
    5. Dorussen Han, 2014. "Peacekeeping Works, or Does It?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 527-537, December.
    6. Ore Koren & Benjamin E. Bagozzi, 2016. "From global to local, food insecurity is associated with contemporary armed conflicts," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(5), pages 999-1010, October.
    7. Jamie Levin & Joseph MacKay & Anne Spencer Jamison & Abouzar Nasirzadeh & Anthony Sealey, 2021. "A test of the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: Coups, democracy, and foreign military deployments," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 355-367, May.
    8. Wukki Kim & Todd Sandler & Hirofumi Shimizu, 2020. "A Multi‐Transition Approach to Evaluating Peacekeeping Effectiveness," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(4), pages 543-567, November.
    9. Andrew Levin, 2021. "Peacekeeper Fatalities and Force Commitments to UN Operations," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(3), pages 292-315, May.
    10. Marina E. Henke, 2019. "UN fatalities 1948–2015: A new dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(4), pages 425-442, July.
    11. Barrett, Philip, 2022. "The fiscal cost of conflict: Evidence from Afghanistan 2005–2017," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Kishi Roudabeh & Maggio Giuseppe & Raleigh Clionadh, 2017. "Foreign Investment and State Conflicts in Africa," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 23(3), pages 1-22, August.
    13. Olalekan Charles Okunlola & Ifeanyi Gerald Okafor, 2022. "Conflict–Poverty Relationship in Africa: A Disaggregated Approach," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 34(1), pages 104-129, January.
    14. Crost, Benjamin & Duquennois, Claire & Felter, Joseph H. & Rees, Daniel I., 2018. "Climate change, agricultural production and civil conflict: Evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 379-395.
    15. Nomikos, William George, 2021. "Unintended Consequences: Reconsidering the Effects of UN Peacekeeping on State-sponsored Violence," OSF Preprints 8h6fs, Center for Open Science.
    16. Andrew Boutton & Vito D’Orazio, 2020. "Buying blue helmets: The role of foreign aid in the construction of UN peacekeeping missions," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(2), pages 312-328, March.
    17. Han Dorussen & Tobias Böhmelt & Govinda Clayton, 2022. "Sequencing United Nations peacemaking: Political initiatives and peacekeeping operations," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(1), pages 24-48, January.
    18. Andrea L. Everett, 2016. "Post-Cold War complex humanitarian emergencies: Introducing a new dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(3), pages 311-339, July.
    19. Jacob D. Kathman, 2013. "United Nations peacekeeping personnel commitments, 1990–2011," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(5), pages 532-549, November.
    20. Wakako Maekawa & Barış Arı & Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, 2019. "UN involvement and civil war peace agreement implementation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 397-416, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:55:y:2018:i:6:p:742-758. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.prio.no/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.