The Local Statebuilding Effect of UN Peace Operations

• In Event: Securing State Reform in Fragile States

Abstract

UN peace operations are increasingly focused not just on keeping the peace but also on building the capacity of the state, particularly via local-level peacebuilding projects (United Nations 2020). The literature on UN peace operations has largely overlooked peace operations’ statebuilding capacity; instead, focusing on the coercive security capacity of UN peacekeeping troops. Based on the findings from a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of US$ 44 million that the UN Peacebuilding Fund allocated to Burundi between 2007 and 2013, we argue that UN peace operations build the local conflict resolution capacity of the state by simultaneously reinforcing the national legitimacy of the state and augmenting its local capacity. Our quasi-experimental spatial study, combining a household level survey with almost 200 semi-structured interviews, shows that across institutions of state conflict-resolution capacity augmented by the UN peace operation, the Burundian population perceived the state to be more effective at mitigating violent conflict than in locations where the UN had not augmented these capacities. These findings have implications for the literature on UN peacekeeping as well as international statebuilding, particularly in relation to the conditions under which external intervenors that tend to strengthen top-down state legitimacy can also reinforce bottom-up state capacity.

Author

• Caroline Brandt, Uppsala University