What peacekeeping leaves behind: evaluating the effects of multi-dimensional peace operations in Africa

Abstract

Peacekeeping today has become ever more complex reaching deep into conflict affected societies aiming to facilitate social, economic and political transformative processes in order to establish sustainable peace. However, most quantitative studies evaluate mission effectiveness only in terms of conflict abatement. This leaves a substantial assessment gap. Therefore this study explores the effects of multi-dimensional peacekeeping by using 12 governance indicators. The article finds that its ambitious goals have largely not been fulfilled. Although there are measureable effects on national security and political participation, in other areas such as personal safety, human development or public management the impact is minimal or non-existent. In order to explain variation across cases and indicators we are testing four intervening variables: the type of peacekeeping mission, the amount of resources allocated, the relative size of civilian and police units per missions and the relationship between personal safety and governance indicators.

Keywords:

• Peacekeeping effectiveness
• peace-building
• multi-dimensional peacekeeping

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Paul F. Diehl for his informative comments on this paper. We are solely responsible for any remaining errors.

Notes

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9. UN-SG, ‘No Exit without Strategy’, para.8.

10. Ibid., para.10.

11. Ibid., para 20.

12. UN-SG, ‘In Larger Freedom’.

13. UN DPKO/DFS, ‘The Capstone Doctrine’.

14. Brosig, ‘EU Peacekeeping in Africa’, 74–90.

15. Akpasom, ‘What Roles for the Civilian and Police Dimensions in African Peace Operations’, 105–119.

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21. Agoglia et al., Measuring Progress in Conflict Environments (MPICE).

22. Diehl and Druckman, Evaluating Peace Operations, 15.

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24. George and Bennett, Case studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 166–167.

25. Diehl and Druckman, ‘Peace Operation Success’, 21.

26. For this study we are only using two of the sub-categories which we think best cover the potential impact of peacekeeping operations, these are public management and infrastructure.

27. De Conning et al., ‘Towards an African Model for Peace Operations’, 10.

28. Dersso, ‘Stabilisation Missions and Mandates in African Peace Operations’, 39.