(iPoster) Peacekeeping, Conflict, Government Repression, and Human Rights

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Protest, Repression, and Democratic Erosion & Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution, and Post-Conflict Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution, and Post-Conflict Politics

Abstract

The number of intrastate conflicts has risen from 21 in 2021 to 38 in 2024, part of a new trend of increasing conflicts that had otherwise been relatively flat since they fell at the end of the 20th century. Over the same period from 2021 to 2024, the number of intrastate conflicts with foreign troops dropped from 26 to 19 (Council on Foreign Relations 2023). Since 2010, one-sided and non-state violence has increased both in terms of actors responsible and the number of deaths. For one-sided violence, in 2010, there were 23 actors responsible for 3,700 deaths, but in 2024, there were 49 actors responsible for 13,900 civilian deaths. For non-state violence, there were 32 conflicts causing 8,700 deaths in 2010 and 74 conflicts resulting in 17,500 deaths in 2024, although this is a decline from its peak in 2017 (Davies et al. 2025). Given these increases in conflicts and deaths that occurred simultaneously with a decreased international presence in civil conflicts, it is important to understand when and how peacekeeping operations minimize or stop conflicts and deaths.
Much of the work investigating the frequency of civil wars, ignores the shift in how wars were fought. The type of civil war has implications for what kind of peacekeeping and conflict prevention are most effective (Council on Foreign Relations 2023). Sambanis and Doyle have found that UN peacekeeping is more effective in states where it supports sovereignty and peacebuilding rather than undermines it, and the goals of the peacekeeping are aligned with the context of the situation (Sambanis and Doyle 2011). However, much of the work investigating peacekeeping does not analyze the motivations of the conflict or the type beyond a few that control for the presence of ethnic divisions. Using UCDP data on intrastate armed conflict and military interventions and V-Dem measures of physical integrity rights and human rights, the paper compares the impact of interventions on both repression and human rights. I use a Heckman Selection Model to control for the non-random choice of where countries and international organizations intervene. Heckman Selection Models have been used in the past to examine the effect of democratic and autocratic military interventions on democratization and autocratization. This two-step process allows for an examination of both the probability of intervention and the effect it had on the type of government (Gleditsch et al. 2007).
Kim and Sandler use matching to find that only regional peacebuilding and peace enforcement missions are related to reductions in rebel-perpetrated one-sided violence, but observer, traditional, peacebuilding, and peace enforcement types of regional peacekeeping are able to reduce government-perpetrated one-sided violence. They match based on a conflict propensity score, which heavily reduces the number of observations in their dataset, so it may not be the best way to deal with endogeneity concerns (Gleditsch et al. 2007).
Grieg and Diehl do not find evidence that leaders will experience more willingness to engage with rivals using data for interstate conflicts (from 1946-1996) and civil conflicts (from 1946-1999). In longer rivalries, peacekeeping forces reduced negotiations and the likelihood of success. In civil wars, there is no evidence that peacekeeping encourages settlements. However, this finding does suffer from some endogeneity concerns. While they use a two-step model to account for the baseline probability that a negotiation will take place and then, given that probability, the likelihood that the negotiation will be successful, they do not account for the overall likelihood of peacekeepers being sent to a conflict. Peacekeepers are more likely to be sent to worse conflicts, which could potentially explain why peacekeepers were associated with the likelihood of successful negotiations decreasing (Greig and Diehl 2005). By using a Heckman Selection Model, I hope to address some of these endogeneity concerns by controlling for factors that are likely to affect both the decision to use peacekeeping forces and their likelihood of success.

Author

• Maya Mikelson, University of California, Berkeley