Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:58:54.854Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Does International Intervention Work to Secure Peace Settlements After Civil Conflicts?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2022

Aila M. Matanock  and
Adam Lichtenheld Open the ORCID record for Adam Lichtenheld [Opens in a new window]
Aila M. Matanock
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Adam Lichtenheld*
Affiliation:
Mercy Corps, Washington, D.C., USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is an emerging consensus that international intervention can secure peace by helping combatants resolve commitment problems following civil wars. But how do interveners accomplish this? Some suggest that intervention primarily works through military coercion, while others propose non-military instruments. We build on the existing literature to theorize that interveners commonly condition political, economic, and legal incentives on compliance with peace processes. Despite a rich literature on intervention, scholars have only started to test the underlying instruments. This article takes a critical step toward this end, examining peacekeeping missions led by the United Nations from 1989 to 2012. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show military coercion is neither commonly used nor necessary to ensure peace. Missions that employ conditional incentives—on which we collect original data—are consistently correlated with a reduced risk of conflict recurrence, even when controlling for observed selection effects, and regardless of whether they are also authorized to use military coercion.

Keywords

Civil conflictinternational interventionpeacekeepingnegotiated settlementspeace agreementsUnited Nations
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 1810 - 1830
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arnault, J (2006) Good Agreement? Bad Agreement? An Implementation Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Centre of International Studies, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Autesserre, S (2014) Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Azpuru, D et al. (2004) Democracy Assistance to Post-Conflict Guatemala: Finding a Balance between Details and Determinants. CRU Working Paper 30 at The Hague: Clingendael Institute.Google Scholar
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) (2006) UN threatens sanctions against those obstructing Ivorian peace process. 20 January.Google Scholar
Beardsley, K (2011) Peacekeeping and the contagion of armed conflict. The Journal of Politics 73, 1051–1064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, K and Gleditsch, KS. (2015) Peacekeeping as Conflict Containment International Studies Review 17 (1), 67–89.Google Scholar
Bjornlund, EC (2004) Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Bove, V and Ruggeri, A (2016) Kinds of blue: Diversity in UN peacekeeping missions and civilian protection. British Journal of Political Science 46(3), 681–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Box-Steffensmeier, J and Zorn, C (2001) Duration models and proportional hazards in political science. American Journal of Political Science 45(4), 972–988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, JM (1975) The Samaritan's Dilemma. In Phelps, ES (ed), Altruism, Morality and Economic Theory. New York: Russell Sage, pp. 71–85.Google Scholar
Call, C (2002) Assessing El Salvador's Transition from Civil War to Peace In Stedman, SJ, Rothchild, D, and Cousens, E (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers pp. 383–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnegie, A and Mikulaschek, C (2020) The promise of peacekeeping: protecting civilians in civil wars. International Organization 74(4), 810–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carothers, T (1999) Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Cil, D and Huth, P (2019) Carrot or stick? Development aid and the implementation of peace agreements by recipient governments. Minerva Research Institute's Owl in the Olive Tree, 10 October. Available online: https://minerva.defense.gov/Owl-In-the-Olive-Tree/Owl_View/Article/1985998/carrot-or-stick-development-aid-and-the-implementation-of-peace-agreements-by-r/Google Scholar
Collier, P and Hoeffler, A (2004) Aid, policy and growth in post-conflict societies. European Economic Review 48, 1125–1145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Soto, A and Del Castillo, G (1994) Obstacles to peacebuilding. Foreign Policy 94, 69–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diehl, P (2016) Breaking the conflict trap: the impact on peacekeeping on violence and democratization in the post-conflict context. In Mason, D and Mitchell, S (eds), What Do We Know about Civil Wars? Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield. pp. 139–156.Google Scholar
Diehl, P, Reifschneider, J and Hensel, PR (1999) United Nations intervention and recurring conflict. International Organization 50(4), 683–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbins, J et al. (2005) The UN's Role in Nation-Building from the Congo to Iraq. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donno, D (2013) Defending Democratic Norms: International Actors and the Politics of Electoral Misconduct. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, MW and Sambanis, N (2006) Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, T (2010) Design-based inference: beyond the pitfalls of regression analysis? In Collier, D and Brady, H (eds), Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 273–311.Google Scholar
Fearon, JD and Laitin, DD (2007) Civil War Termination. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, August 30–September 2.Google Scholar
Fjelde, H, Hultman, L and Nilsson, D (2019) Protection through presence: UN peacekeeping and the costs of targeting civilians. International Organization 73(1), 103–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flores, TE and Nooruddin, I (2011) Credible commitment in post-conflict recovery. In Coyne, C and Mathers, R (eds), Handbook on the Political Economy of War, London: Edward Elgar, pp. 474–497.Google Scholar
FMLN Legalization – Contingent on Demobilization (1992) October 29, Case ID F-2008–05748, Document No. C17582252, El Salvador Declassification Project, U.S. Department of State Freedom of Information Act, U.S. Department of State.Google Scholar
Fortna, VP (2008) Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortna, VP and Howard, LM (2008) Pitfalls and prospects in the peacekeeping literature. Annual Review of Political Science 11, 283–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortna, VP and Martin, L (2009) Peacekeepers as signals: the demand for international peacekeeping in civil wars. In Milner HV and Moravcsik A (eds), Power, Interdependence and Non-state Actors in World Politics: Research Frontiers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franke, VC and Warnecke, A (2009) Building peace: an inventory of U.N. peace missions since the end of the Cold War. International Peacekeeping 16(3), 407–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedom House (2019) Freedom of the Press. Available from https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-press (accessed March 2019).Google Scholar
Gilligan, MJ and Sergenti, EJ (2008) Do U.N. interventions cause peace? Using matching to improve causal inference. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 3(2), 89–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girod, D (2012) Effective foreign aid following civil war: the nonstrategic-desperation hypothesis. American Journal of Political Science 56(1), 188–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gizelis, TI and Benson, M (2019) Advancing the frontier of peacekeeping research. Journal of Conflict Resolution 63(7), 1595–1600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafner-Burton, EM (2013) Making Human Rights a Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hartzell, CA and Hoddie, M (2007) Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Heard, J (1999) Guatemala Demobilization and Incorporation Program: An Evaluation Prepared for the Office of Transition Initiatives, Bureau for Humanitarian Response, US Agency for International Development. January.Google Scholar
Högbladh, S (2011) Peace agreements 1975–2011—updating the UCDP peace agreement dataset. In T, Pettersson and Themnér, L (eds), States in Armed Conflict 2011. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University, Department of Peace and Conflict Research Report, p. 99.Google Scholar
Howard, LM (2008) UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Howard, LM (2019) Power in Peacekeeping. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, LM and Dayal, AK (2018) The use of force in UN peacekeeping. International Organization 72(1), 71–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hultman, L, Nygård, HM and Hegre, H (2013) United Nations peacekeeping and civilian protection in civil war. American Journal of Political Science 57(4), 875–891.Google Scholar
Hultman, L, Nygård, HM and Hegre, H (2014) Beyond keeping peace: United Nations effectiveness in the midst of fighting. American Political Science Review 108(4), 737–753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hultman, L, Nygård, HM and Hegre, H (2016) United Nations peacekeeping dynamics and the duration of post-civil conflict peace. Conflict Management and Peace Science 33(3), 231–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hultman, L, Nygård, HM and Hegre, H (2019) Evaluating the conflict-reducing effect of UN peacekeeping operations. The Journal of Politics 81(1), 215–232.Google Scholar
Hunnicutt, P and Nomikos, W (2019) UN Peacekeeping at the Local-Level: Using Geocoded Data to Assess Diversity, Gender Balance, and Effectiveness. February 16. Available from https://ssrn.com/abstract=3335560CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (1997) Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping Operations: Debriefing and Lessons; Report and Recommendations of the International Conference Singapore, February 1997. London, UK: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Ishizuka, K (2013) Japan In Bellamy, AJ and Williams, PD (eds), Providing Peacekeepers: The Politics, Challenges, and Future of United Nations Peacekeeping Contributions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 396–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kathman, JD and Wood, RM (2016) Stopping the killing during the “peace”: peacekeeping and the severity of postconflict civilian victimization. Foreign Policy Analysis 12(2), 149–169.Google Scholar
Keohane, RO (1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kjeksrud, S and Ravndal, JA (2011) Emerging lessons from the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo: military contributions to the protection of civilians. African Security Review 20(2), 3–16.Google Scholar
Kreps, SE and Wallace, G (2009) Just How Humanitarian Are Interventions? Peacekeeping and the Prevention of Civilian Killings during and after Civil Wars. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, Canada, September 3–6.Google Scholar
Lake, DA and Fariss, CJ (2014) Why international trusteeship fails: the politics of external authority in areas of limited statehood. Governance 27(4), 569–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeoGrande, WM (1998) Foreign aid to Central America: is the era of aid over? In Grant, R and Nijman, J (eds), Global Crisis in Foreign Aid. Syracuse, NY, : Syracuse University Press, pp. 103–112.Google Scholar
Lindley, D (2007) Promoting Peace with Information: Transparency as a Tool of Security Regimes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lundgren, M, Oksamytna, K and Coleman, KP (2021) Only as fast as its troop contributors: Incentives, capabilities, and constraints in the UN's peacekeeping response. Journal of Peace Research, 58(4), 671–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maekawa, W, Arı, B and Gizelis, T-I (2019) UN involvement and civil war peace agreement implementation. Public Choice 178(3–4), 397–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matanock, AM and Lichtenheld, A (2021) “Replication Data for: How Does International Intervention Work to Secure Peace Settlements After Civil Conflicts?”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ENAZAA, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:cUUtT1TUdJeST4zleAG3Eg== [fileUNF]”.Google Scholar
Matanock, AM (2017a) Electing Peace: From Civil Conflict to Political Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matanock, AM (2017b) Bullets for Ballots: Electoral Participation Provisions in Peace Agreements and Conflict Recurrence. International Security 41, 93–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matanock, AM (2020) How International Actors Help Enforce Domestic Deals Annual Review of Political Science 23, 357–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattes, M and Savun, B (2009) Fostering peace after civil war: commitment problems and agreement design. International Studies Quarterly 53, 737–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattes, M and Savun, B (2010) Information, agreement design, and the durability of civil war settlements. American Journal of Political Science 54(2), 511–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, PD (2013) Confronting State Failure, 1898–2012. Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mullenbach, MJ (2013) Third-party peacekeeping in intra-state disputes, 1946–2012: a new data set. The Midsouth Political Science Review 14, 103–133.Google Scholar
New York Times (2014) U.N. Set to Cut Force in Darfur as Fighting Rises. 25 December. Available from www.nytimes.com (accessed 27 January 2015).Google Scholar
Osborn, BJ (2013) Peacekeeping and Peace Kept: Third Party Interventions and Recurrences of Civil War. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Kentucky, USA.Google Scholar
Paris, R (2003) Peacekeeping and the constraints of global culture. European Journal of International Relations 9(3), 441–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Passmore, TJ, Shannon, M and Hart, AF (2018) Rallying the troops: collective action and self-interest in UN peacekeeping contributions. Journal of Peace Research 55(3), 366–379.Google Scholar
Polman, L (2003) We Did Nothing: Why the Truth Doesn't Always Come out When the Un Goes In. New York, NY: Viking.Google Scholar
Regan, PM and Aydin, A (2006) Diplomacy and other forms of intervention in civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50(5), 736–756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Remmert, D (2017) The Effects of International Peace Missions on Corruption. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.Google Scholar
Ruggeri, A, Dorussen, H and Gizelis, T-I (2013) Managing mistrust: an analysis of cooperation with U.N. peacekeeping in Africa. Journal of Conflict Resolution 57(3), 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggeri, A, Dorussen, H and Gizelis, T-I (2017) Winning the peace locally: UN peacekeeping and local conflict. International Organization 71(1), 163–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggeri, A, Dorussen, H and Gizelis, T-I (2018) On the frontline every day? Subnational deployment of United Nations peacekeepers. British Journal of Political Science 48(4), 1005–1025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartre, P (2011) Making UN Peacekeeping More Robust: Protecting the Mission, Persuading the Actors. New York, NY: International Peace Institute.Google Scholar
Schelling, TC (1966) Arms and influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sekhon, JS (2011) Multivariate and Propensity Score Matching Software with Automated Balance Optimization: The Matching package for R. Journal of Statistical Software 42, i07.Google Scholar
Simmons, BA (2009) Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, B (2010) Treaty compliance and violation. Annual Review of Political Science 13, 273–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, W and Holiday, D (1997) Peace Mission Strategy and Domestic Actors: UN Mediation, Verification and Institution-Building in El Salvador. International Peacekeeping 4, 22–49.Google Scholar
Stanley, W and Holiday, D (2002) Broad Participation, Diffuse Responsibility: Peace Implementation in Guatemala. In Rothchild, D, Stedman, SJ, and Cousens, EM (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreement Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publications, pp. 1–54 (in pre-publication PDF provided).Google Scholar
Toft, MD (2009) Securing Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, JM, Nelson, S and Mahling-Clark, K (1998) Mozambique's vote for democratic governance. In Kumar, K (ed.), Postconflict Elections, Democratization, and International Assistance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 153–175.Google Scholar
United Nations (2008) Principles of Peacekeeping. Available at: https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/principles-of-peacekeepingGoogle Scholar
UN (United Nations) General Assembly (2014) Evaluation of the implementation and results of protection of civilians mandates in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, A/68787, March 7.Google Scholar
Vayrynen, R (1997) Economic incentives and the Bosnian peace process. In Cortright, D (ed.), The Price of Peace: Incentives and International Conflict Prevention. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 150–180.Google Scholar
Verstegen, S (2000) The Netherlands and Guatemala: Dutch Policies and Intervention in the Guatemalan Conflict and Peace. Clingendael Institute, Conflict Policy Research Unit, The Hague, the Netherlands, December 1.Google Scholar
Walter, BF (1997) The critical barrier to civil war settlement. International Organization 51, 335–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, BF (2002) Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Walter, BF (2009) Bargaining failures and civil war. Annual Review of Political Science 12, 243–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, BF (2015) Why bad governance leads to repeat civil war. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (7), 1242–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, BF, Howard, LM and Fortna, VP (2021) The extraordinary relationship between peacekeeping and peace. British Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 1705–1722.Google Scholar
Wantchekon, L (2004) The paradox of “warlord” democracy: A theoretical investigation. American Political Science Review 98(1), 17–33.Google Scholar
Whitfield, T (2007) Friends indeed?: the United Nations, Groups of Friends, and the resolution of conflict. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press.Google Scholar
World Bank (2019) World governance indicators. Available from http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/ (accessed March 2019).Google Scholar
Wright, J and Winters, M (2010) The politics of effective foreign aid. Annual Review of Political Science 13, 61–80.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Matanock and Lichtenheld Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ENAZAA
Link
Supplementary material: File

Matanock and Lichtenheld supplementary material

Appendix

Download Matanock and Lichtenheld supplementary material(File)
File 737.1 KB