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ABSTRACT
While the peacekeeping mission in Mali is the deadliest active mission, aid workers are not a prominent target. This is puzzling because humanitarians argue that integrated missions aligning political, military and humanitarian goals impede their security. I argue that the fallacy of integrated peacekeeping missions is that the humanitarian space shrinks due to rising insecurity. This takes place when integrated missions blur the lines between civilian and military action and when they politicize humanitarian aid through biased mandates. I test the argument by comparing new data on peacekeeping stabilization projects with other aid projects, using a matched wake analysis that estimates a difference-in-difference model with sliding spatio-temporal windows. I find that peacekeeping stabilization activities increase violence against civilians on the ground in the short term, which ultimately decreases humanitarian access. Paradoxically, the UN names lack of humanitarian access as a key challenge to protecting civilians, but contributes to the access challenge itself.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the European University Institute for facilitating the Open Access publication of this article. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers of this article and the Peace and Security Panel at the Swiss Political Science Association Annual Conference for their helpful comments.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Humanitarian Outcomes, Aid Worker Security Database; United Nations, Peace Security Data Hub.
2 Ibid.
3 Hoelscher et al., “Conflict, Peacekeeping, and Humanitarian Security”; Stoddard et al., Providing Aid in Insecure Environments.
4 United Nations, Peace Security Data Hub.
5 Ibid.
6 Schutte and Donnay, “Matched Wake Analysis”.
7 Report of the Secretary-General on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, S/2009/277, New York: United Nations, 29 May 2009, paras 5, 26, 58–60.
8 Fjelde et al., “Protection Through Presence”; Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally”.
9 Karell and Schutte, “Aid, Exclusion, and the Local Dynamics of Insurgency in Afghanistan”.
10 Duffield et al., “Politics and Humanitarian Aid”.
11 Harmer, “Integrated Missions”
12 Metcalfe et al., UN Integration and Humanitarian Space.
13 Ibid., 26.
14 Glad, A Partnership at Risk? The UN-NGO Relationship in Light of UN Integration. Torrenté, “Humanitarianism Sacrificed”
15 Barnett, Empire of Humanity; Collinson and Elhawary, Humanitarian Space; OCHA, Glossary of Humanitarian Terms in Relation to the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.
16 Stoddard et al., Providing Aid in Insecure Environments.
17 Pictet, “The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross”.
18 Broussard et al., “Challenges to Ethical Obligations and Humanitarian Principles in Conflict Settings”; Donini, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”
19 Torrenté, “Humanitarianism Sacrificed”.
20 Terry, “The International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan”.
21 Slim, “Relief Agencies and Moral Standing in War,” 347.
22 Slim, Humanitarian Ethics; Torrenté, “Humanitarianism Sacrificed”.
23 Torrenté, “Humanitarianism Sacrificed,” 12.
24 Slim, Humanitarian Ethics, 63–64.
25 Lotze, “United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)”
26 Koops et al., “Introduction,” 2.
27 Macrae and Leader, The Politics of Coherence.
28 Secretary-General Decision No. 2008/24 (SG Decision 2008)
29 Harmer, “Integrated Missions”.
30 Metcalfe et al., UN Integration and Humanitarian Space, 15.
31 Barnett, Empire of Humanity, 193.
32 Spear, “The Militarization of United States Foreign Aid,” 30.
33 Powell, Remarks to the National Foreign Policy Conference for Leaders of Nongovernmental Organizations.
34 Barnett, Empire of Humanity, 193.
35 Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 84.
36 Beath et al., “Winning Hearts and Minds? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan”.
37 Sexton, “Aid as a Tool against Insurgency”.
38 Narang and Stanton, “A Strategic Logic of Attacking Aid Workers”.
39 Karell and Schutte, “Aid, Exclusion, and the Local Dynamics of Insurgency in Afghanistan”.
40 Fast, Aid in Danger .
41 Buchanan and Muggah, No Relief ; Naylor, “Mafias, Myths, and Markets”.
42 Anderson, Do No Harm; Lischer, Dangerous Sanctuaries; Narang and Stanton, “A Strategic Logic of Attacking Aid Workers”; Stoddard et al., Providing Aid in Insecure Environments.
43 Glad, A Partnership at Risk? The UN-NGO Relationship in Light of UN Integration. Torrenté, “Humanitarianism Sacrificed”.
44 Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally”.
45 Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War”.
46 Fjelde et al., “Protection Through Presence”.
47 Bove et al., Composing Peace; Hultman et al., Peacekeeping in the Midst of War.
48 Carnegie and Mikulaschek, “The Promise of Peacekeeping”.
49 Di Salvatore, “Obstacle to Peace? Ethnic Geography and Effectiveness of Peacekeeping”.
50 Kathman and Wood, “Stopping the Killing during the “Peace””.
51 Hultman, “Keeping Peace or Spurring Violence? Unintended Effects of Peace Operations on Violence against Civilians”.
52 Walter et al., “The Extraordinary Relationship between Peacekeeping and Peace”.
53 Smidt, “United Nations Peacekeeping Locally”.
54 Charbonneau, “Intervention in Mali”.
55 S/RES/2584 (2021), page 1, 6.
56 Bellamy and Hunt, “Using Force to Protect Civilians in UN Peacekeeping”; Charbonneau, “Intervention in Mali”.
57 Pozo Marín, Perilous Terrain, 5.
58 Lamarche, Mali’s Humanitarian Crisis Overmilitarized and Overshadowed.
59 Pozo Marín, Perilous Terrain, 230.
60 Nomikos, “Peace Is in the Eye of the Beholder”, “Peacekeeping and the Enforcement of Intergroup Cooperation”.
61 Hunnicutt et al., “Non-Combatants or Counter-Insurgents? The Strategic Logic of Violence against UN Peacekeeping”.
62 Chauzal and Van Damme, The Roots of Mali’s Conflict.
63 Lotze, “United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)”.
64 ACLED, Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED).
65 Lotze, “United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)”.
66 S/RES/2100 (2013), 16 (a), 16 (c), page 8.
67 Bellamy et al., Understanding Peacekeeping.
68 Tronc et al., Perilous Terrain.
69 S/RES/2227 (2015)
70 Benjaminsen and Ba, “Why Do Pastoralists in Mali Join Jihadist Groups? A Political Ecological Expla- nation”.
71 Tronc et al., Perilous Terrain.
72 DPKO, Quick Impact Projects (QIPs), 3.
73 Ibid., 6.
74 Ibid., 3.
75 Ibid., 4.
76 DPKO, Quick Impact Projects, 7.
77 MINUSMA, Quick Impact Projects, 4.
78 S/RES/2584 (2021), 31 (a), page 12.
79 DPKO, Quick Impact Projects (QIPs), 3.
80 Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 84.
81 Karell and Schutte, “Aid, Exclusion, and the Local Dynamics of Insurgency in Afghanistan”.
82 United Nations, Peace Security Data Hub.
83 Raleigh and Hegre, “Population Size, Concentration, and Civil War. A Geographically Disaggregated Analysis”.
84 Cressie, “Change of Support and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem”.
85 Schutte and Donnay, “Matched Wake Analysis”.
86 Raleigh and Hegre, “Population Size, Concentration, and Civil War. A Geographically Disaggregated Analysis”.
87 Koren and Sarbahi, “State Capacity, Insurgency, and Civil War”.
88 Hammond, “Maps of Mayhem”.
89 Buhaug et al., “Geography, Rebel Capability, and the Duration of Civil Conflict”.
90 WFP, Fighting Hunger in the Sahel.
91 Schutte and Donnay, “Matched Wake Analysis,” 4.
92 Cox, “Two Further Applications of a Model for Binary Regression”.
93 OCHA, Glossary of Humanitarian Terms in Relation to the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 13.
94 OCHA, Accès Humanitaire Au Mali, 4.
95 UNDSS, Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations Personnel.
96 Stoddard et al., Providing Aid in Insecure Environments, 42.
97 IASC, Non-Binding Guidelines on the Use of Armed Escorts for Humanitarian Convoys; OCHA, UN- CMCoord - Guide for the Military 2.0.
98 OCHA, Accès Humanitaire Au Mali.
99 Ruffa and Vennesson, “Fighting and Helping? A Historical-Institutionalist Explanation of NGO-military Relations,” 588.
100 Karell and Schutte, “Aid, Exclusion, and the Local Dynamics of Insurgency in Afghanistan”.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Melanie Sauter
Melanie Sauter is a Ph.D. Researcher in Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence.