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United Nations Peacekeeping Locally: Enabling Conflict Resolution, Reducing Communal Violence

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  • Hannah M. Smidt

Abstract

United Nations peacekeeping operations (UN PKOs) increasingly engage with local communities to support peace processes in war-torn countries. Yet, while existing research tends to focus on the coercive and state-building functions of UN PKOs, their concrete local activities with community leaders and populations remain, empirically and theoretically, understudied. Thus, this study investigates how peacekeepers’ community-based intergroup dialogue activities influence communal violence. It argues that facilitating dialogue between different communal identity-based groups locally can revive intergroup coordination and diminish negative biases against other groups, thereby reducing the risk of communal conflict escalation. This argument is tested using a novel data set of intergroup dialogue activities organized by the UN PKO in Côte d’Ivoire across 107 departments from October 2011 to May 2016. Bivariate probit and matching address the nonrandom assignment of these interventions. The analyses provide robust evidence that the UN PKO mitigated communal violence by organizing intergroup dialogues.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:2-3:p:344-372
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002719859631
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Vineet Kapoor & William Flavin & Peter Ochs & Thomas Matyók & Essam Fahim, 2022. "Community Policing Solutions for Religion-on-Religion Conflict: Lessons from an Indian Case Study," World, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-18, October.
    3. Nomikos, William George, 2021. "Peacekeeping and the Enforcement of Intergroup Cooperation: Evidence from Mali," SocArXiv 36j8q, Center for Open Science.
    4. Sarah Langlotz, 2021. "Foreign Interventions and Community Cohesion in Times of Conflict," HiCN Working Papers 352, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. van Baalen, Sebastian, 2024. "Keeping communal peace in the shadow of civil war: A natural experiment from Côte d’Ivoire," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Maekawa, Wakako, 2024. "United Nations peacekeeping operations and multilateral foreign aid: Credibility of good governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Bove,Vincenzo & Di Salvatore,Jessica & Elia,Leandro, 2022. "What it Takes to Return : UN Peacekeeping and the Safe Return of Displaced People," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10102, The World Bank.

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