Burden sharing in UN peacekeeping operations: Who deploys to violent locations?

Abstract

Which countries deploy troops to violent locations within UN peacekeeping operations? Troop contributing countries face different incentives to participate in peacekeeping operations. These motivating factors should also condition their willingness to take on risks to implement mission mandates. I argue that states motivated to ensure the effectiveness of an operation as well as states that expect to receive private gains by deploying to riskier locales within missions will send more of their troops to these areas. In contrast, states with leaders that are more sensitive to the potential costs associated with riskier commitments will be less willing to send their service members to violent locations. Results from an analysis of spatially disaggregated data across 23 UN missions from 1994 to 2015 support these expectations. States hosting refugees from a mission location tend to deploy more troops to local areas that experience major violent episodes. States that generate greater benefits to their militaries through their involvement in peacekeeping also provide more troops to these areas. In contrast, democratic contributors send fewer troops to violent locations. The results further reveal important disparities in troop deployments within UN peacekeeping operations.

¿Qué países despliegan tropas en áreas violentas dentro del marco de las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU? Los países que aportan contingentes cuentan con diferentes incentivos para participar en las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz. Estos factores motivadores también pueden condicionar su disposición a asumir riesgos durante la ejecución de los mandatos de las misiones. Sostenemos que aquellos Estados que estén motivados en garantizar la efectividad de una operación y aquellos Estados que esperen recibir beneficios privados debido a su despliegue en áreas más arriesgadas dentro de las misiones, son los que enviarán una mayor proporción de sus tropas a estas áreas. En contraposición, aquellos Estados cuyos líderes son más sensibles a los costes potenciales asociados a los compromisos más arriesgados, tendrán una menor disposición a enviar a sus miembros fuerzas armadas a áreas violentas. Los resultados obtenidos de un análisis de datos desglosados espacialmente de 23 misiones de la ONU entre 1994 y 2015 ofrecen respaldo a estas expectativas. Los Estados que acogen a refugiados desde un emplazamiento de misión tienden a desplegar más tropas en las áreas locales en las que tienen lugar episodios violentos importantes. Los Estados que generan mayores beneficios a sus fuerzas armadas a través de su participación en el mantenimiento de la paz también proporcionan más tropas a estas áreas. En contraposición, los contribuyentes democráticos envían menos tropas a las áreas violentas. Los resultados revelan, además, importantes disparidades en el despliegue de tropas dentro de las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU.

Quels sont les pays qui déploient des troupes dans les zones de conflits où interviennent les opérations de maintien de la paix de l’ONU ? Les pays qui fournissent des troupes participent aux opérations de maintien de la paix pour différentes raisons. Ces motivations s’accompagnent logiquement de conséquences quand il s’agit de prendre des risques pour mettre en œuvre des mandats de mission. Selon moi, les États qui souhaitent garantir l’efficacité d’une opération, mais aussi ceux qui agissent dans leur propre intérêt en déployant des forces sur les lieux d’intervention les plus risqués des missions, enverront davantage de troupes dans ces zones. À l’inverse, les États plus sensibles aux coûts potentiels des engagements plus risqués seront moins enclins à envoyer leurs militaires dans les zones de violence. Les résultats d’une analyse de données ventilées dans l’espace issues de 23 missions de l’ONU de 1994 à 2015 viennent étayer cette hypothèse. Quand un État accueille des réfugiés provenant d’un lieu d’intervention d’une mission, il a tendance à déployer davantage de troupes sur les zones qui subissent des épisodes de violence importants. Les États dont les armées bénéficient davantage de leur engagement dans le maintien de la paix fourniront aussi davantage de troupes pour ces lieux. À l’opposé, les contributeurs démocratiques envoient moins de troupes dans les zones de violence. D’après les résultats, il existe encore d’autres disparités importantes dans le déploiement de troupes dans le cadre des opérations de maintien de la paix de l’ONU.

Keywords:

• Foreign policy
• peacekeeping
• troop deployments

Data Availability Statement

Replication materials for this article are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/internationalinteractions.

Notes

1 While the DPKO reviews pledges from TCCs, and may at times reject or limit pledges, missions often have sizeable vacancy rates during the pre-deployment phase leaving much opportunity for states to provide personnel (for more discussion on this see Bellamy and Williams 2021, 246–256 and Smith and Boutellis 2013, 11–12).

2 In a few instances the UN has repatriated units for not following orders through the chain of command. However, the possibility for caveats and perceived ambiguities in a mission’s rules of engagement has more often resulted in TCCs exercising national control over their forces without facing repatriation (see Bode and Karlsrud 2019, 473–474). The UN continues to deliberate over the problem of how to hold peacekeeping units accountable to implementing mission mandates (see Di Razza 2020).

3 Scholars have identified several reasons for an increase in commitments by Western to states to more recent operations such as MINUSMA while also acknowledging ongoing limitations to these states’ involvement. In addition to some holding concerns about the broader regional impacts of the targeted conflicts, Western states may be more willing than previously to participate in recent UN operations following the drawdown of NATO’s ISAF and other, EU-led, activities (Boutellis and Beary 2020; Koops and Tercovich 2016). Many NATO and EU members may view participation in UN operations as an opportunity to maintain or enhance the training and interoperability of their forces in foreign theaters (Boutellis and Beary 2020; Karlsrud and Osland 2016).

4 There have been some notable differences among Western TCCs in terms of their willingness to take on risks in MINUSMA during different periods of the mission. For instance, van Willigen (2016, 714) notes that the Netherlands had not imposed national caveats on its initial deployments. Dutch special forces also participated in intelligence gathering efforts and initially helped to escort supply convoys in the rebel-occupied northern region (Cold-Ravnkilde, Albrecht, and Haugegaard 2017, 37–39). However, the Netherlands eventually restricted its troops from traveling to this region after incurring fatalities in a mortar accident in Kidal in 2016 (see Boutellis and Beary 2020, 9). In contrast, Germany and Sweden appeared to be relatively more risk-averse as they maintained tighter restrictions on the ranges their troops could travel outside of their camps in Gao and Timbuktu (Boutellis and Beary 2020, 16).

5 Some African contributors have also imposed restrictions however. For instance, Niger was only willing to deploy to locations close to its border (Cold-Ravnkilde, Albrecht, and Haugegaard 2017, 38).

6 Notably, Chad has been the only state willing to maintain permanent deployments in the north, though Guinea has also maintained a strong presence in this region (Cold-Ravnkilde, Albrecht, and Haugegaard 2017).

7 Results from models with mission-level fixed effects are reported in the Supplementary Appendix.

8 In additional analyses reported in the Supplementary Appendix, I find that democracies are less inclined to send troops to violent locations after 1998. This result is in line with the findings in Duursma and Gledhill (2019).