Civil Conflict Fragmentation and the Effectiveness of UN Peacekeeping Operations

ABSTRACT

While the extant literature has highlighted the importance of UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in addressing commitment problems in civil wars, actor fragmentation presents additional challenges for conflict resolution. A higher number of competing actors not only worsens coordination problems but also aggravates the risk of opposition to a peace process, generating an environment prone to spoiler violence. This article argues that UN interventions matter more when commitment and coordination problems are worse, which corresponds to known traits of fragmented conflicts. Using data on civil conflict duration and intensity, we present evidence that UN PKOs are effective at mitigating adverse impacts of fragmentation. Fragmented conflicts are both longer and deadlier when the UN is not involved to support a peace process, while UN peacekeeping mitigates the effects of fragmentation.

KEYWORDS:

• UN peacekeeping
• conflict fragmentation
• peace process
• civil war

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Daina Chiba, Tobias Böhmelt, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, two anonymous reviewers and the editors of International Peacekeeping for their constructive comments and suggestions. Previous versions of this article were presented at the 2017 annual convention of the International Studies Association, 2017 annual conference of the International Association for Peace and Conflict Studies and the North-East Research Development Workshop (Durham University and Newcastle University).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

About the Authors

Bariş Ari, PhD in Government (University of Essex, 2018); Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.

Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, PhD in Political Science and Economics (Claremont Graduate University, 1999); Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Spoiler refers to a conflict-party or a faction that opposes a peace process and attempts to undermine it, especially through violent actions. See Stedman, “Spoiler Problems.”

2 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War.

3 Kreutz, “How and When.”

4 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials”; Pearlman and Cunningham, “Nonstate Actors.”

5 Blattman and Miguel, “Civil War”; Cunningham, “Actor Fragmentation”; Kydd and Walter, “Sabotaging the Peace”; Rudloff and Findley, “The Downstream Effects.”

6 Christia, Alliance Formation.

7 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

8 Beardsley and Schmidt, “Following the Flag”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

9 Such investigations are confined within qualitative case studies, e.g. Howard, Power in Peacekeeping.

10 Here we define UN involvement as the deployment of peacekeeping missions that are mandated to engage in activities such as patrolling, monitoring, and disseminating information.

11 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials.”

12 Rhoades, “The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.”

13 Hegre et al., “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing”; Howard, Power in Peacekeeping.

14 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace”; Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian.”

15 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping Dynamics”; Mac Ginty et al., “Liberal Peace.”

16 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Hegre et al., “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally.”

17 Ruggeri et al. “Winning the Peace Locally.”

18 Cunningham, “Veto Players.”

19 Kreutz, “How and When.”

20 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

21 Pearlman and Cunningham, “Nonstate Actors.”

22 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials”; Cunningham, “Shirts Today.”

23 Carey et al., “States, the Security Sector”; Clayton and Thomson, “The Enemy of my Enemy”; Jentzsch et al., “Militias in Civil Wars.”

24 Cunningham, “Divide and Conquer.”

25 Suhrke, “Reconstruction as Modernization.”

26 Cunningham et al., “Shirts Today”; Fjelde and Nilsson, “Rebels against Rebels”; Lawrence “Triggering Nationalist Violence”; Seymour, “Why Factions Switch Sides.”

27 Cunningham, “Divide and Conquer”; Johnston, “Negotiated Settlements”; Nilsson, “Partial Peace”; Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out.”

28 Hoddie and Hartzell, “Institutionalizing Peace”; Kydd and Walter, “Sabotaging the Peace”; Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out”; Stedman, “Spoiler Problems”; Walter, “The Critical Barrier.”

29 Cunningham, “Actor Fragmentation”; Rudloff and Findley, “The Downstream Effects.”

30 Blattman and Miguel, “Civil War,” 16.

31 Christia, Alliance Formation.

32 Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out.”

33 Ibid., 83.

34 Ibid, 82.

35 Cunningham, “Veto Players.”

36 Fjelde and Nilsson, “The Rise of Rebel Contenders”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally.”

37 Buhaug et al., “Geography, Rebel Capability.”

38 Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 11; Sandler “International Peacekeeping.”

39 Gleditsch, Transnational Dimensions.

40 Beardsley, “Peacekeeping and the Contagion”; Beardsley and Gleditsch, “Peacekeeping as Conflict Containment.”

41 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, “Does Peacekeeping Keep”; Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions”; Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping Dynamics”; Mac Ginty et al., “Liberal Peace.”

42 Maekawa et al., “UN Involvement”; Mac Ginty et al., “Liberal Peace.” Note that both accord implementation and UN peacekeeping have separate independent impacts on the durability of peace whereas the latter also has a positive impact on the former.

43 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions.”

44 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Hegre et al., “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally.”

45 Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian.”

46 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

47 Bara, “Shifting Targets”; Cil et al., “Mapping Blue Helmets”; Fjelde et al., “Protection Through Presence”; Hunnicutt and Nomikos, “Nationality, Gender, and Deployments at the Local Level.”

48 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Walter, “The Critical Barrier.”

49 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Howard, Power in Peacekeeping.

50 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

51 Kirschner, “Knowing Your Enemy”; Walter, “Bargaining Failures.”

52 Powell, “War as a Commitment Problem.”

53 Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone; Ruggeri et al., “Managing Mistrust.”

54 Blattman and Miguel, “Civil War”; Cunningham, “Actor Fragmentation”; Christia, Alliance Formation; Rudloff and Findley, “The Downstream Effects.”

55 Dorussen and Gizelis, “Into the Lion's Den.”

56 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

57 Darby, “The Effects of Violence”; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

58 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials”; Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out”; Rudloff and Findley, “The Downstream Effects.”

59 Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out.”

60 Fjelde and Nilsson, “The Rise of Rebel Contenders.”

61 This point is inspired by Pearlman's composite-actor model and her discussion of the Palestinian resistance movement; see Pearlman, “A Composite-Actor Approach.”

62 Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out.”

63 Beardsley and Gleditsch, “Peacekeeping as Conflict Containment”; Dorussen and Gizelis, “Into the Lion's Den”; Ruggeri et al., “Managing Mistrust.”

64 For a detailed discussion of the material incentives that UN PKOs bring, see Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Howard, Power in Peacekeeping.

65 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Howard, Power in Peacekeeping.

66 Darby, “The Effects of Violence”; Pearlman, “Spoiling Inside and Out.”

67 Hultman et al., “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian.”

68 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War.

69 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

70 Beardsley and Gleditsch, “Peacekeeping as Conflict Containment”; Ruggeri et al., “On the Frontline”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally.”

71 UN News, “Security a Top Priority.”

72 Ruggeri et al., “On the Frontline”; Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally”; Dorussen and Gizelis, “Into the Lion's Den”; Ruggeri et al., “Managing Mistrust.”

73 Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War.”

74 Cunningham, “Divide and Conquer”; Cunningham, “Veto Players”; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

75 Nomikos, “Why Share?”

76 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War, 53–4.

77 Ibid., 58.

78 Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

79 Doyle and Sambanis, Making War, 96.

80 Ibid., 329.

81 Theoretically, we are also interested in the reverse condition: what would have happened if the UN had been involved in a fragmented conflict?

82 Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 126.

83 Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 80–128.

84 Thakur, “The United Nations Interim Force.” As quoted in Howard, Power in Peacekeeping, 126.

85 Kreutz, “How and When.”

86 We follow Thyne to identify and remove coups from our sample. Thyne, “The Impact of Coups.”

87 Kathman and Benson, “Cut Short?”

88 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

89 Hegre et al., “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing”; Sandler, “International Peacekeeping.”

90 Sandler, “International Peacekeeping.”

91 Beardsley and Schmidt, “Following the Flag”; Gilligan and Stedman, “Where Do the Peacekeepers Go?”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

92 Beardsley et al., “Mediation, Peacekeeping”; Hegre et al., “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing”; King and Zeng, “When Can History”; Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?; Vivalt, “Peacekeepers Help.”

93 Beardsley et al., “Mediation, Peacekeeping.”

94 Kathman, “United Nations Peacekeeping.”

95 Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions”; Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?

96 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

97 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials.”

98 Melander et al., “Organized Violence.”

99 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

100 Ibid.

101 Bakke et al., “A Plague of Initials.”

102 Melander et al., “Organized Violence.”

103 Clayton “Relative Rebel Strength”; Buhaug et al., “Geography, Rebel Capability.”

104 Wucherpfennig et al., “Ethnicity, the State.”

105 Coppedge et al., “Varieties of Democracy.”

106 Gleditsch, “Expanded Trade.”

107 Gilligan and Stedman, “Where Do the Peacekeepers Go?”

108 Singer et al., “Capability Distribution.”

109 Cunningham et al., “It Takes Two.”

110 We test and find no evidence against the proportional hazard's assumption.

111 In a regression model with a multiplicative interaction term between two variables, the individual terms for the two variables specified as interaction cannot be interpreted independently, as the net effect of each variable will depend on the level of the other variable and the coefficient for the interactive term, and the coefficient estimate for each of the individual term will depend on the scaling of the variables. In other words, one cannot differentiate the net effect of one independent variable on the overall model and the two variables must be interpreted together; see Braumoeller, “Hypothesis Testing.”

112 Gilligan and Sergenti, “Do UN Interventions”; Kathman and Benson, “Cut Short?”

113 Hultman et al., “Beyond Keeping Peace.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council under grants 1511566 and ES/T006013/1.