Successes and Failures in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo

This chapter explores two conflicts and their related UN missions: Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC and MONUSCO). The chapter conducts qualitative analyses of these missions to explore the effect peacekeeping capacity and constitution on civil war violence, noting the UN’s ability to engage in mechanisms of violence reduction. The conflicts are not two cases of obvious peacekeeping success, and there are clear instances of failure in both UN efforts. However, in many situations, the missions were more effective when capacity and constitution improved, indicating that relative effectiveness increases as UN missions are sufficiently outfitted. The chapter complements the quantitative analyses by highlighting the limits of the theory and the challenges to peacekeeping missions in the midst of war.

Mechanisms of Peacekeeping Effectiveness

This chapter provides the book’s theoretical foundation, establishing that civil war violence results from incomplete information and commitment problems between government and rebel forces. UN peacekeeping reduces violence by making combatants’ use of violence more costly and helping factions commit to peaceful forms of conflict resolution. The two characteristics of peacekeeping missions that best enable them to mitigate violence are capacity and constitution. These characteristics can vary dramatically within and across missions. Capacity is conceptualized as the number of personnel deployed and constitution as the type of personnel deployed. Missions with larger amounts of appropriate personnel better perform violence reduction activities, as do missions constituted with substantial armed troops and police. The capacity and constitution of peacekeeping missions should be considered critical components of peacekeeping’s ability to reduce violence.

Measuring Peacekeeping Effectiveness

This chapter describes how United Nations peacekeeping effectiveness has previously been studied and measured in the academic literature. Peacekeeping is designed to first reduce the violence of civil conflicts before pursuing higher-order goals such as political stability, democratization, and peace consolidation. Yet much research on peacekeeping makes “absolutist” judgements about success or failure in achieving higher-order outcomes without recognizing that peacekeeping must first stop violence. The chapter establishes a metric for peacekeeping effectiveness that is used throughout the book: the reduction of violence in civil wars. It then discusses that peacekeepers often intervene while violence is ongoing, which makes mitigating hostilities a challenging task for the United Nations.

Saving Humanity from Hell?

This chapter summarizes the book, highlighting the importance of a holistic assessment of UN peacekeeping’s effect on conflict dynamics. It discusses many of the potential detriments and weaknesses of peacekeeping. Though the book identifies a normatively positive relationship between increasingly large peacekeeping missions and the reduction of civil war violence, UN peacekeeping is not unconditionally valuable. Substantial missions also come with negative consequences discussed in this chapter. However, these same issues are exacerbated by enduring civil war violence. The positive influence of large peacekeeping deployments then becomes even more valuable, as reduced violence is likely to have positive downstream consequences in these same areas. Relying on additional existing research, the chapter presents informal analyses to provide a fuller picture of the violence reduction associated with UN peacekeeping. The chapter concludes by revisiting the complexity of civil conflict, the challenges of peacekeeping, and the potential for reduced violence.

Reducing Battlefield Violence

Battle-related violence results from fighting between organized belligerent groups. This chapter proposes that peacekeepers can reduce such violence in civil wars by making violence more costly and helping belligerents commit to giving up the use of violence. Peacekeeping missions with greater capacity are better able to impede battle-related violence, as are missions constituting greater amounts of armed troops. Large-n quantitative analyses of peacekeeping deployments on battle-related violence in civil wars from 1992 to 2014 reveal that as the number of armed peacekeeping troops deployed to a civil war increases, fewer deaths occur from battle-related violence. The chapter concludes that UN peacekeeping missions with greater capacity in terms of armed troops are effective in reducing battle-related hostilities.

Reducing Violence against Civilians

This chapter studies the effect of UN peacekeeping on violence against civilians in civil wars, proposing that peacekeepers reduce civilian targeting by making violence more costly and helping belligerents commit to giving up the use of violence. Peacekeeping missions with greater capacity are better able to stop violence against civilians. Among types of UN peacekeeping personnel, armed troops and police are best positioned and able to mitigate violence against civilians. Thus, missions constituted of greater amounts of armed troops and police should be more likely to reduce civilian targeting by combatants. The chapter presents a global quantitative analysis of peacekeeping deployments on deaths resulting from anti-civilian violence in all civil wars from 1992 to 2014. The analyses reveal that as the number of armed peacekeeping troops and police deployed to a civil war increases, fewer deaths occur from civilian targeting. The chapter concludes that UN peacekeeping missions with greater capacity and constituted of armed troops and police are effective in reducing violence against civilians.

Peacekeeping and the Problem of Civil War

Does United Nations peacekeeping reduce violence in civil wars? This chapter discusses the scope of problem posed by civil conflicts around the world, and illustrates the human suffering caused by internal political violence. It then introduces United Nations peacekeeping as one of the primary tools used by the international community to reduce civil war brutality. Though UN peacekeeping is frequently used in the world’s most intractable conflicts, little is known about how effectively it mitigates hostilities. This chapter presents the research strategy used in the book, which is designed to give a better understanding of peacekeeping’s effect on violence. It then discusses the intellectual and humanitarian benefits of broadly and systemically analyzing the effect of United Nations peacekeeping on violence in civil war.