scholarly journals Rallying the troops

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy JA Passmore ◽  
Megan Shannon ◽  
Andrew F Hart
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Member States ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Is the acquisition of personnel for UN peacekeeping missions susceptible to free-riding by UN member states? If so, what drives this behavior and what impact does this have on obtaining required personnel for the mission? Using data from 21 missions in 13 African countries between 1990 and 2010, this article addresses whether UN peacekeeping missions experience a shortfall in personnel due to incentives to free-ride by contributing states. It argues that as the number of states contributing to a mission increases, contributors have a greater incentive to free-ride and make suboptimal personnel contributions, leading to greater overall shortfall in the mission’s personnel. However, this free-riding behavior can be mitigated by the economic incentives of contributor states. The findings support two central tenets of collective action theory: that free-riding by member states contributing to the mission is more prevalent when the number of contributors is larger, and when selective incentives such as economic gains are lower. These findings have implications for the strategic composition and efficacy of peacekeeping forces. More broadly, the results underscore the struggle of international organizations to obtain compliance from member states in achieving their international objectives.

scholarly journals Only as fast as its troop contributors: Incentives, capabilities, and constraints in the UN’s peacekeeping response

2020 ◽  
pp. 002234332094076
Author(s):  
Magnus Lundgren ◽  
Kseniya Oksamytna ◽  
Katharina P Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Negative Externalities ◽  
Member States ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Standing Army ◽  
Rapid Deployment

International organizations’ ability to respond promptly to crises is essential for their effectiveness and legitimacy. For the UN, which sends peacekeeping missions to some of the world’s most difficult conflicts, responsiveness can save lives and protect peace. Very often, however, the UN fails to deploy peacekeepers rapidly. Lacking a standing army, the UN relies on its member states to provide troops for peacekeeping operations. In the first systematic study of the determinants of deployment speed in UN peacekeeping, we theorize that this speed hinges on the incentives, capabilities, and constraints of the troop-contributing countries. Using duration modeling, we analyze novel data on the deployment speed in 28 peacekeeping operations between 1991 and 2015. Our data reveal three principal findings: All else equal, countries that depend on peacekeeping reimbursements by the UN, are exposed to negative externalities from a particular conflict, or lack parliamentary constraints on sending troops abroad deploy more swiftly than others. By underlining how member state characteristics affect aggregate outcomes, these findings have important implications for research on the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping, troop contribution dynamics, and rapid deployment initiatives.

scholarly journals Balancing Incentives Among Actors: A Carrots and Sticks Approach to Reputation in UN Peacekeeping Missions

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 228-232
Author(s):  
Sabrina M. Karim
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Member States ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Competing Priorities ◽  
Mixed Motives

As Kristina Daugirdas points out in her article on the role of reputation in international organizations (IOs), peacekeeping operations include a multitude of actors with varying interests. These actors have competing priorities, which forces IOs to balance the needs of the actors involved in peacekeeping missions. Because IOs often depend on member states as implementing agents, this could cause IOs to suppress their own interests in favor of member states, which could ultimately negatively affect the communities in which the peacekeepers operate. This dynamic is present in UN peacekeeping operations. While Daugirdas seeks to align the incentives of the UN and the states that contribute peacekeepers so as to harness reputation as a force to encourage the good behavior of all involved, I argue that this alignment rarely happens because of IOs’ reliance on member states. Through the dynamics of UN peacekeeping operations, I show that the UN reliance on states to provide police officers and troops suppresses the UN's own interests in favor of the contributing states’ interests. I also identify a carrots and sticks approach to balancing incentives. As Paul Stephan does in his essay for this symposium, I draw on a rational-choice, actor-based theory to identify the mixed motives of the various actors who staff and operate peacekeeping missions. The framework proposed here, I contend, provides a way to better understand the sources of the tension that exist when evaluating reputation as a disciplinary tool for IOs.

Suicide after Deployment in UN Peacekeeping Missions—A Danish Pilot Study

Crisis ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Hansen-Schwartz ◽  
G. Jessen ◽  
K. Andersen ◽  
H.O. Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Summary: This pilot study looks at the frequency of suicide among Danish soldiers who took part in the UN mandated forces (UNMF) during the 1990's. In a contingent of nearly 4000 Danish UN soldiers four suicides were documented, two of whom committed suicide less than one month before deployment and two who committed suicide within a year after discharge from mission. Contributing factors, prevention strategies, and implications for future research are discussed.

An Analysis of UN Peacekeeping as Pakistan’s Soft Power Asset

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ume Farwa ◽  
Ghazanfar Ali Garewal
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Protective Role ◽  
International Community ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The People ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

The power of attraction and admiration is soft power. Generally, it is perceived that hard power cannot generate soft power, but the protective role of military in humanitarian crises and conflicts negates this prevailing misperception by specifying their contexts and effective utilizations; hard power assets can be transformed into soft power resources. This paper argues that the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions are the source of soft power and Pakistan, being an active participant in this field, can utilize this asset for shaping the preferences of others. Overall, it did earn admiration from international community and managed to build its soft image abroad through peacekeeping missions. Pakistani blue helmets not only earned the admiration and appreciation of the people of the conflict-zones and earned praises, but from international community also. However, to what extent has the country utilized this asset of soft power to exercise its influence in the global arena remains debatable. Although Pakistan’s UN Peacekeeping missions have been an instrument of building the country’s soft image, it is publicized in a far less productive manner. Peacekeeping can be used as a means to enhance the country’s presence and the level of participation in both international and regional organizations. By effective application of soft power strategy in tandem with public diplomacy, Pakistan’s UN peacekeeping can provide the country with the platform where its narratives can be projected effectively and its influence can be exercised adroitly.

UN Peacekeeping Operations and Successful Military Diplomacy: A Case Study of Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bakare Najimdeen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
Military Diplomacy

Few years following its creation, the United Nations (UN) with the blessing of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided to establish the UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO), as a multilateral mechanism geared at fulfilling the Chapter VII of the UN Charter which empowered the Security Council to enforce measurement to maintain or restore international peace and security. Since its creation, the multilateral mechanism has recorded several successes and failures to its credit. While it is essentially not like traditional diplomacy, peacekeeping operations have evolved over the years and have emerged as a new form of diplomacy. Besides, theoretically underscoring the differences between diplomacy and foreign policy, which often appear as conflated, the paper demonstrates how diplomacy is an expression of foreign policy. Meanwhile, putting in context the change and transformation in global politics, particularly global conflict, the paper argues that traditional diplomacy has ceased to be the preoccupation and exclusive business of the foreign ministry and career diplomats, it now involves foot soldiers who are not necessarily diplomats but act as diplomats in terms of peacekeeping, negotiating between warring parties, carrying their countries’ emblems and representing the latter in resolving global conflict, and increasingly becoming the representation of their countries’ foreign policy objective, hence peacekeeping military diplomacy. The paper uses decades of Pakistan’s peacekeeping missions as a reference point to establish how a nation’s peacekeeping efforts represent and qualifies as military diplomacy. It also presented the lessons and good practices Pakistan can sell to the rest of the world vis-à-vis peacekeeping and lastly how well Pakistan can consolidate its peacekeeping diplomacy.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 1992–1996

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adekeye Adebajo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Tight Control ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Egyptian scholar-diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s relationship with the UN Security Council was a difficult one, resulting eventually in him earning the unenviable record of being the only Secretary-General to have been denied a second term in office. Boutros-Ghali bluntly condemned the double standards of the powerful Western members of the Council—the Permanent Three (P3) of the US, Britain, and France—in selectively authorizing UN interventions in “rich men’s wars” in Europe while ignoring Africa’s “orphan conflicts.” The Council’s powerful members ignored many of his ambitious ideas, preferring instead to retain tight control of decision-making on UN peacekeeping missions. Boutros-Ghali worked with the Security Council to establish peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Cambodia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Somalia.

Collective Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 466-488
Author(s):  
Jac C. Heckelman
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Institutional Instability ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Mancur Olson

The theory of collective action, as outlined by Mancur Olson, is presented. Olson argued that individuals are subject to free-riding behavior, which can be overcome by selective incentives. The larger is the potential group, the greater the hurdles to successful formation. Thus, smaller groups with more narrow interests are more likely to form, leading to an emphasis on policy reform that concentrates benefits to the group while diffusing the costs on greater society. The accumulation of such groups will slow growth, and this sclerotic effect is reversed due to institutional instability. This chapter develops a critical appraisal of the theory and the accumulated evidence in the literature that follows from Olson.

Private Pensions and the Gender Distribution of Fiscal Welfare

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micheál L. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Tax Policy ◽  
Private Pensions ◽  
Gender Distribution ◽  
Member States ◽  
Current Structure ◽  
Gender Earnings Gap ◽  
Earnings Gap ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Welfare State

The provision of taxation relief to support pension savings has become a large and expensive aspect of the welfare state in many countries. Among OECD member states this exceeds $200 billion in revenue forgone each year. Previous research has consistently found this fiscal welfare to have pronounced regressive distributive outcomes. However, little is known about the gendered impact of these fiscal welfare supports, a void this article addresses. Using data for Ireland the article finds that the current structure of fiscal welfare supports notably favours males over females. Nominal contribution levels are higher among males, and males are more likely to be active contributors to pension savings. The associated tax supports are consequently skewed, with two-thirds received by men and one-third by women. This outcome suggests a continuation of the gender earnings gap into retirement and a discontinuity between longevity expectations and tax policy supports for pension provision.

scholarly journals Suicide after Service in UN Peacekeeping Missions—A Danish Pilot Study

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (S1) ◽  
pp. S42-S43
Author(s):  
J Hansen-Schwartz ◽  
G Jessen ◽  
K Andersen ◽  
HO Jorgensen
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Beyond Keeping Peace: United Nations Effectiveness in the Midst of Fighting

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA HULTMAN ◽  
JACOB KATHMAN ◽  
MEGAN SHANNON
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
United Nations Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
The Cold War

While United Nations peacekeeping missions were created to keep peace and perform post-conflict activities, since the end of the Cold War peacekeepers are more often deployed to active conflicts. Yet, we know little about their ability to manage ongoing violence. This article provides the first broad empirical examination of UN peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing battlefield violence in civil wars. We analyze how the number of UN peacekeeping personnel deployed influences the amount of battlefield deaths in all civil wars in Africa from 1992 to 2011. The analyses show that increasing numbers of armed military troops are associated with reduced battlefield deaths, while police and observers are not. Considering that the UN is often criticized for ineffectiveness, these results have important implications: if appropriately composed, UN peacekeeping missions reduce violent conflict.

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