Peacekeepers Without Helmets: How Violence Shapes Local Peacebuilding by Civilian Peacekeepers

Abstract

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are increasingly deployed during ongoing violent conflict, they are also increasingly staffed with civilian personnel tasked with peacebuilding at the local level. How does violent conflict affect civilian peacekeepers’ peacebuilding efforts locally? Shifting the research focus from military to civilian peacekeepers, we argue that the latter have various incentives and the capacity to concentrate their local-level peacebuilding efforts in violence-affected areas. We test our argument using novel, georeferenced data on peacebuilding by “Civil Affairs” personnel of the peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic. Consistent with our expectation, violence positively correlates with civilian peacekeepers’ peacebuilding interventions both within and across localities. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that this correlation is not merely due to greater UN military deployments in violence-affected areas. Instrumental variable regression supports a causal interpretation: violence leads to more efforts by civilian peacekeepers. These findings inform expectations and assessments of peacekeeping effectiveness.