A price for peace: troop contributing countries’ responses to peacekeeper fatalities

ABSTRACT

How do states respond to fatalities of their troops in UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs)? Recent research highlights that participation in peacekeeping is costly for most states. Personnel fatalities should create further costs for contributors and often result in a reduction of their commitments. Studies that evaluate this expectation yield mixed findings. One finds no evidence that OECD countries provide fewer personnel to UN PKOs following fatalities. In contrast, another finds that fatalities generally correspond with reductions in states’ personnel commitments to UN operations in Africa but also reveals that wealthier contributors tend to withdraw at larger magnitudes than their poorer counterparts. This study builds on this work by further hypothesizing that the incentives that motivate states to participate in PKOs condition their willingness to maintain their contributions after experiencing fatalities. An analysis of states’ troop fatalities and commitments to 41 UN operations from 1990 to 2015 supports this expectation. States that are contiguous to an operation, which face greater concerns about the externalities of nearby conflicts, and states that receive side payments for their troop commitments, via foreign aid, are more willing to maintain their commitments in response to fatalities of their troops than other contributors. Additional findings suggest that non-contiguous contributors that do not receive side payments are also inclined to withdraw troops in response to upticks in organized violence surrounding a mission as well as fatalities of other contributors’ troops. These results illustrate that the motives that states face to participate in PKOs also affect their willingness to maintain their troop commitments as their costs for participation increase.

¿Cómo reaccionan los Estados ante las muertes de sus tropas durante las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz (Peacekeeping Operation, PKO) de la ONU? Las investigaciones recientes destacan que la participación en el mantenimiento de la paz es costosa para la mayoría de los Estados. Las muertes del personal deberían generar mayores costos para los países colaboradores y, a menudo, dan lugar a una reducción de sus compromisos. Los estudios que se realizan para evaluar esta expectativa arrojan resultados dispares. Uno de estos no halla ninguna evidencia de que los países de la OCDE envíen menos efectivos a las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU tras las bajas. Por el contrario, otro descubre que las muertes generalmente se corresponden con la reducción del compromiso de los Estados con el envío de tropas a operaciones de la ONU en África, pero también revela que los países colaboradores más ricos tienden a retirar una cantidad mayor de personal que sus equivalentes más pobres. El estudio se basa en este trabajo y plantea la hipótesis de que los incentivos que motivan a los Estados a participar en las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz condicionan su voluntad de mantener sus contribuciones después de sufrir bajas. Un análisis de las muertes en las tropas de los Estados y de sus compromisos de participar en 41 operaciones de la ONU desde 1990 a 2015 respalda esta expectativa. Los Estados contiguos a una operación, que enfrentan una preocupación mayor con respecto a las externalidades de los conflictos cercanos, y los Estados que reciben pagos adicionales por su compromiso con el envío de tropas, a través de la ayuda exterior, están más dispuestos a mantener su compromiso en respuesta a las bajas en sus filas que otros países colaboradores. Otros resultados sugieren que los países no contiguos que no reciben pagos adicionales también tienden a retirar sus tropas en respuesta al incremento de la violencia organizada en torno a una misión, así como a las bajas en las tropas de otros países colaboradores. Estos resultados ilustran que los motivos que llevan a los Estados a participar en las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz también afectan su voluntad de mantener el envío de tropas a medida que aumentan los costos de participación.

Comment les États réagissent-ils aux décès de leurs troupes lors d’opérations de maintien de la paix de l’ONU ? De récentes recherches mettent en évidence le fait que la participation au maintien de la paix est coûteuse pour la plupart des États. Les décès de troupes engendreraient des coûts supplémentaires pour les États contributeurs et entraîneraient souvent une réduction de leurs engagements de troupes dans les opérations. Les résultats des études qui évaluent cette hypothèse sont mixtes. Une étude trouve aucune preuve que les pays de l’OCDE fournissent moins de personnel pour les opérations de maintien de la paix de l’ONU suite aux décès de leurs troupes. À l’inverse, une autre étude constate que les décès de troupes correspondent généralement à des réductions d’engagement de personnel des États dans les opérations de l’ONU en Afrique mais révèle également que les États contributeurs plus riches tendent à se retirer plus largement que leurs homologues plus pauvres. La présente étude s’appuie sur ces travaux en approfondissant l’hypothèse selon laquelle les incitations qui motivent les États à participer aux opérations de maintien de la paix conditionneraient leur volonté de maintenir leurs contributions après avoir subi des pertes de troupes. Une analyze des décès de troupes et des engagements de troupes des États dans 41 opérations de l’ONU entre 1990 et 2015 soutient cette hypothèse. Les États qui sont contigus à une opération et davantage préoccupés par les externalités des conflits proches, et les États bénéficiant de paiements annexes pour leurs engagements de troupes via l’aide étrangère, sont davantage prêts à maintenir leurs engagements suite à des décès de leurs troupes que les autres États contributeurs. Des résultats d’analyze supplémentaires suggèrent que les États contributeurs non contigus aux opérations qui ne bénéficient pas de paiements annexes sont également enclins à retirer des troupes suite à de légères hausses de la violence organisée entourant une mission ainsi qu’aux décès de troupes d’autres États contributeurs. Ces résultats illustrent que les motivations des États à participer aux opérations de maintien de la paix affectent également leur volonté de maintenir leurs engagements de troupes lorsque les coûts de participation augmentent.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacekeeping
• peacekeeper fatalities
• troop deployments
• foreign policy

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers at International Interactions for their helpful comments in improving this article. In addition, the author is grateful to Yuki Atsusaka, Kristin Bryant, Jessica Edry, Songying Fang, Nick Coulombe, Laura Huber, Connor Huff, Ashley Leeds, Carla Martinez Machain, Yui Nishimura, Randy Stevenson, Alex Pugh, Liana Reyes Reardon and participants at the Midwest Political Science Association’s 2019 Annual Meeting and the Southern Political Science Association’s 2021 Annual Meeting for their generous and helpful feedback at various stages of this project.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ Levin (2021) points out that Pakistan’s overall commitment of personnel to UNOSOM increased from 4,718 to 7,243 within one year following these events.

² https://bit.ly/3syO1LP

³ https://bit.ly/3m3Q3RQ

⁴ Raes, Du Bois, and Buts(2019) restrict their analysis to OECD contributors to UN missions from 1994 to 2014 while Levin’s sample consists of UN missions in Africa from 1990 to 2010.

⁵ https://bit.ly/3m3QjjM

⁶ This claim, as far as the author is aware, has not been evaluated empirically, but it is conceivable (for instance, see Carment and James 2000).

⁷ Interested readers may also wish to refer to a relevant study by Williams (2020) which discusses the expanding presence of neighboring states in peacekeeping operations.

⁸ In fact, MINUSMA was the only mission in 2020 to which both countries committed any military personnel.

⁹ For instance, a UN report on the training needs of peacekeeping personnel in 2008 found that only 40% of deployed peacekeepers who were surveyed reported that they had received pre-deployment training specific to UN peacekeeping prior to joining their mission. The number was higher for military personnel, at 75%, but still considerably low given that the UN expects for troops to receive training prior to joining a mission. https://bit.ly/3dli7w7

¹⁰ One can find various reports that indicate the under supply of equipment across missions.For instance, see https://bit.ly/3x5qCDY

¹¹ Pivotal states are defined as states that “display the greatest preference intensity for the execution of a specific operation” (Henke 2019).

¹² Henke points out that national debt relief was the top policy priority of Nigerian President at the time (pp. 15-16).

¹³ https://bit.ly/3maeeOv

¹⁴ For instance, if a country experiences fatalities of their peacekeepers in March of 2014, withdraws personnel from the mission in July of the same year, and does not readjust their commitment upward in the following year, then the annual measure should account for this reduction. This would also be the case if the withdrawal instead occurred in January the following year.

¹⁵ Troop contributors that withdraw entirely from a mission receive a value of 0 in that year and are no longer included in the analysis in subsequent years unless they make a new contribution.

¹⁶ Results from analyses including fatalities and commitments of all personnel types are included in the Appendix. I also separately analyze the effects of different types of personnel fatalities which are only recorded for all personnel types.

¹⁷ Further descriptive information for the dependent variable is provided in the appendix.

¹⁸ Additional analyses that incorporate a measure for refugees and geographic distance are included in the appendix.

¹⁹ This full model is estimated in order to identify whether the estimated conditional relationships hold when the other interaction term is included. When estimating multiple interaction terms that use at least one of the same covariates, it is necessary to include interactions between all covariates that share the same constituent (e.g., Brambor, Clark, and Golder 2006; Braumoeller 2004). It will also be substantively interesting to identify whether, for example, pivotal aid similarly affects contiguous and noncontiguous states’ reactions to troop fatalities. This is explored further below.