Peacekeeping, Preference Alignment, and the Future of Conflict Management

• In Event: The Future of Conflict Management

Abstract

An enormous literature demonstrates that UN peacekeeping leads to many “good” outcomes of conflict management, including shorter wars, longer-lasting peace agreements, reduced battlefield and civilian casualties, and a lower likelihood of conflict diffusion. Less explored is the role that UN member state alignment as well as peacebuilding and development efforts have in UN peace operation (UNPOs) success. Authorizing and sustaining a UN peace operation requires preference alignment among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as a wide range of other member states. In addition, UN peace operations–whether peacekeeping operations (PKOs) or Special Political Missions (SPMs)– are accompanied by a range of peacebuilding and development efforts, all of which ultimately aim to mitigate conflict. We argue that both preference alignment and conflict mitigation activities other than peacekeeping can also contribute to successful conflict management, and that existing analyses are picking up some of their effect in the estimated effect of peacekeeping. We conduct an analysis of a sample of 320 UNPO years, and use matching to examine how preference alignment and other conflict mitigation activities affect the duration of conflict and levels of violence at similar numbers and composition of peacekeeping troops. The findings of this study are particularly important for understanding the future of conflict management, since preference divergence among the P-5 and other UN member states is already leading to a decline in UN peacekeeping operations, while other conflict management activities that do not require UNSC authorization are more likely to continue.

Authors

• Susanna Campbell, American University

• David E. Cunningham, University of Maryland, College Park