IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v38y2021i5p580-604.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Keeping electoral peace? Activities of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their effects on election-related violence

Author

Listed:
  • Hannah Smidt

Abstract

In war-torn countries, elections are held to support peacebuilding, but they sometimes trigger new violence. While peacekeeping operations (PKOs) regularly accompany electoral periods, we lack systematic knowledge on how they influence election-related violence. I argue that variation in peacekeepers’ activities is fundamentally important: only if PKOs assist with securing and organizing elections can they reduce election-related violence. Using novel data on PKOs’ election-related activities and accounting for endogeneity in both peacekeeping deployment and activities, the analyses of all 630 elections in conflict-affected countries support this expectation. The result implies that the design of PKOs is crucial for effectively managing post-war political transitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah Smidt, 2021. "Keeping electoral peace? Activities of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their effects on election-related violence," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(5), pages 580-604, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:38:y:2021:i:5:p:580-604
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894220960041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894220960041
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894220960041?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilligan, Michael J. & Sergenti, Ernest J., 2008. "Do UN Interventions Cause Peace? Using Matching to Improve Causal Inference," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 89-122, July.
    2. Zhaotian Luo & Arturas Rozenas, 2018. "The Election Monitor's Curse," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 148-160, January.
    3. Paul Collier & Pedro C. Vicente, 2014. "Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 327-355, February.
    4. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero & Adrienne LeBas, 2020. "Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 77-92, January.
    5. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, 2014. "An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices and Effects of Political Violence and Vote-buying," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 58(8), pages 1500-1527, December.
    6. Hyde, Susan D. & Marinov, Nikolay, 2014. "Information and Self-Enforcing Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 329-359, April.
    7. Paul Collier & Pedro Vicente, 2012. "Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of elections in Sub-Saharan Africa," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 117-147, October.
    8. Little, Andrew T., 2012. "Elections, Fraud, and Election Monitoring in the Shadow of Revolution," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 7(3), pages 249-283, June.
    9. Tierney, Michael J. & Nielson, Daniel L. & Hawkins, Darren G. & Roberts, J. Timmons & Findley, Michael G. & Powers, Ryan M. & Parks, Bradley & Wilson, Sven E. & Hicks, Robert L., 2011. "More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1891-1906.
    10. Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. & Hyde, Susan D. & Jablonski, Ryan S., 2014. "When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 149-179, January.
    11. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero & Adrienne LeBas, 2016. "Does electoral violence affect voting choice and willingness to vote? Evidence from a vignette experiment," CSAE Working Paper Series 2016-35, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    12. James D. Fearon, 2011. "Self-Enforcing Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1661-1708.
    13. World Bank, 2014. "World Development Indicators 2014," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18237.
    14. Beaulieu,Emily, 2014. "Electoral Protest and Democracy in the Developing World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107039681, January.
    15. Cederman, Lars-Erik & Weidmann, Nils B. & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, 2011. "Horizontal Inequalities and Ethnonationalist Civil War: A Global Comparison," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 478-495, August.
    16. Hannah M. Smidt, 2020. "United Nations Peacekeeping Locally: Enabling Conflict Resolution, Reducing Communal Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(2-3), pages 344-372, February.
    17. Ho, Daniel & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2011. "MatchIt: Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal Inference," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i08).
    18. Mvukiyehe, Eric & Samii, Cyrus, 2017. "Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Field Experimental Evidence from Liberia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 254-267.
    19. Autesserre, Séverine, 2009. "Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, Local Violence, and International Intervention," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(2), pages 249-280, April.
    20. Inken von Borzyskowski, 2016. "Resisting democracy assistance: Who seeks and receives technical election assistance?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 247-282, June.
    21. Jessica Di Salvatore, 2019. "Peacekeepers against Criminal Violence—Unintended Effects of Peacekeeping Operations?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(4), pages 840-858, October.
    22. Beaulieu,Emily, 2014. "Electoral Protest and Democracy in the Developing World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107612273, January.
    23. Lisa Hultman & Jacob Kathman & Megan Shannon, 2013. "United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(4), pages 875-891, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sarah Birch & Ursula Daxecker & Kristine Höglund, 2020. "Electoral violence: An introduction," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 3-14, January.
    2. Hanne Fjelde, 2020. "Political party strength and electoral violence," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 140-155, January.
    3. Inken von Borzyskowski & Patrick M Kuhn, 2020. "Dangerously informed: Voter information and pre-electoral violence in Africa," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 15-29, January.
    4. Carla Martinez Machain & Leo Rosenberg, 2018. "Domestic diversion and strategic behavior by minority groups," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(5), pages 427-450, September.
    5. Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos & Chad Kiewiet de Jonge & Carlos Meléndez & David Nickerson & Javier Osorio, 2020. "Carrots and sticks: Experimental evidence of vote-buying and voter intimidation in Guatemala," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 46-61, January.
    6. Lauren E Young, 2020. "Who dissents? Self-efficacy and opposition action after state-sponsored election violence," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 62-76, January.
    7. Maekawa, Wakako, 2024. "United Nations peacekeeping operations and multilateral foreign aid: Credibility of good governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Fielding, David, 2018. "The geography of violence during a presidential election: Evidence from Zimbabwe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 538-558.
    9. Rubén Ruiz-Rufino & Sarah Birch, 2020. "The effect of alternation in power on electoral intimidation in democratizing regimes," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 126-139, January.
    10. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero & Adrienne LeBas, 2020. "Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 77-92, January.
    11. Turnbull, Megan, 2021. "When armed groups refuse to carry out election violence: Evidence from Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    12. Escriba-Folch, Abel & Meseguer, Covadonga & Wright, Joseph, 2018. "Remittances and protest in dictatorships," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89058, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Michael Wahman & Edward Goldring, 2020. "Pre-election violence and territorial control: Political dominance and subnational election violence in polarized African electoral systems," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 93-110, January.
    14. Cazals, Antoine & Léon, Florian, 2023. "Perception of political instability in election periods: Evidence from African firms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 259-276.
    15. Eric Mvukiyehe, 2018. "Promoting Political Participation in War-torn Countries," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(8), pages 1686-1726, September.
    16. Ackermann, Klaus & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2024. "Estimating the relationship between ethnic inequality, conflict and voter turnout in Africa using geocoded data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    17. Gail Buttorff & Douglas Dion, 2017. "Participation and boycott in authoritarian elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(1), pages 97-123, January.
    18. Ursula Daxecker, 2020. "Unequal votes, unequal violence: Malapportionment and election violence in India," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 156-170, January.
    19. Dorussen Han, 2014. "Peacekeeping Works, or Does It?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 527-537, December.
    20. Sunn Bush, Sarah & Cottiero, Christina & Prather, Lauren, 2024. "Zombies Ahead: Explaining the Rise of Low-Quality Election Monitoring," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt2fc2d3pr, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:38:y:2021:i:5:p:580-604. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.