Externalities of Consent: Host Government Consent and UN Institutional Weakness Open Access
Villa, Danielle (Spring 2021)
Abstract
UN peacekeeping operations intervene in war-torn countries to protect civilians and restore peace. However, operations must deploy with the consent of the host government. Consent can be revoked at any point, forcing peacekeeper exit. This gives governments leverage over the mission: by threatening to revoke consent, governments gain power over peacekeepers. In civil wars, this is not leverage that non-state actors possess. This dissertation explores how consent is used by governments to reap benefits from peacekeepers and how consent alters peacekeeper behavior. This dissertation argues that peacekeepers' subnational deployment patterns are influenced by governmental preferences. Modern peacekeeping operations are able to use force in certain settings, allowing them to contribute military benefits to the subnational locations where they are deployed. Host governments seek to ensure that peacekeepers are deployed to the areas where these benefits can support them in battle and aid in consolidating territorial control. Thus, subnational peacekeeper deployments should be more likely to go where they can support a government in conflict, as opposed to deploying to where they can support non-state actors. Moreover, consent also implies that peacekeepers should be less effective at constraining host government violence against civilians. This results in peacekeepers being ineffective at reducing host government violence. Using an original database of subnational peacekeeper deployments, this project introduces host governments as political actors with agency in peacekeeping operations; rather than understanding peacekeepers as neutral, this dissertation instead demonstrates that political constraints force bias into their actions.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 The Shifting Nature of UN Peacekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Where Do Peacekeepers Deploy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 UN Peacekeeper Base Types and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4 The Sample Of This Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 Why Does Bias in UN Operations Matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.6 Road Map of the Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 2: A Theory of Consent, Host Government Influence, and United Nations Peacekeeping Operations
2.1 What is Host Government Consent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2 Restricted and Revoked Consent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3 Consent and Government Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4 UN Peacekeeper Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.1 Static Operating Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.4.2 Temporary Operating Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.4.3 Discussing the Independent Variables Across Chapters 3 and 4 . . . . 44
2.5 Consent and Peacekeeper Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Chapter 3: Static Operating Base Locations and Territorial Consolidation
3.1 Host Government Consent and Peacekeeper Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2 What Are Static Operating Bases? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Peacekeeper Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.1 Military Benefit: Limit Renewed Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.3.2 Military Benefit: Hold Territory and Limit the Geographic Spread of Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.3.3 Military Benefit: Security Sector Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.3.4 Why Do Host Governments Want These Benefits? . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.4 Where Do Governments Want Peacekeeper Benefits? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.5 Empirically Testing Where Static Operating Bases Deploy . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.5.1 Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.5.2 Independent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.5.3 Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.5.4 A Note on Event Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.6 Where Do Military Peacekeepers at Static Operating Bases Deploy? . . . . . 76
3.7 Robustness Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.8 What Does This Tell Us About Peacekeepers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Chapter 4: Peacekeeper Temporary Operating Base Locations and Active Conflict Benefits
4.1 Consent and Peacekeeper Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.2 Temporary Operating Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.3 Military Benefits of TOBs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.4 Governmental Utility in TOB Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.5 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.5.1 Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.5.2 Independent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.5.3 Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.6 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.7 What Does This Tell Us About Peacekeepers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 5: The Protective Subnational Capabilities Of United Nations Peacekeepers
5.1 How Can Military Peacekeepers Protect Civilians? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.2 How Does Consent Alter Peacekeepers' Protective Capabilities? . . . . . . . 123
5.3 Do Peacekeepers Protect Civilians? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.3.1 Outcome Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.3.2 Explanatory Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.3.3 Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.3.4 Modeling Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.4.1 Fixed Effects Linear Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.4.2 Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
5.5 What Does This Tell Us About UN Peacekeeping Operations? . . . . . . . . 146
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Chapter 6: Conclusion
6.1 Overview of the Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.2 Consent and International Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.3 Contributions and Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Appendix A Appendix to Chapter 3 163
Appendix B Appendix to Chapter 4 170
Appendix C Appendix to Chapter 5 175
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