Research

Description:
Civil wars pose some of the most difficult problems in the world today and the United Nations is the organization generally called upon to bring and sustain peace. Lise Morjé Howard studies the sources of success and failure in UN peacekeeping. Her in-depth 2008 analysis of some of the most complex UN peacekeeping missions debunks the conventional wisdom that they habitually fail, showing that the UN record actually includes a number of important, though understudied, success stories. Using systematic comparative analysis, Howard argues that UN peacekeeping succeeds when field missions establish significant autonomy from UN headquarters, allowing civilian and military staff to adjust to the post-civil war environment. In contrast, failure frequently results from operational directives originating in UN headquarters, often devised in relation to higher-level political disputes with little relevance to the civil war in question. Howard recommends future reforms be oriented toward devolving decision-making power to the field missions.

Award: 2010 Best Book Award from the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS)

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Description:

United Nations peacekeeping has proven remarkably effective at reducing the death and destruction of civil wars. But how peacekeepers achieve their ends remains under-explored. This book presents a typological theory of how peacekeepers exercise power. If power is the ability of A to get B to behave differently, peacekeepers convince the peacekept to stop fighting in three basic ways: they persuade verbally, induce financially, and coerce through deterrence, surveillance and arrest. Based on more than two decades of study, interviews with peacekeepers, unpublished records on Namibia, and ethnographic observation of peacekeepers in Lebanon, DR Congo, and the Central African Republic, this book explains how peacekeepers achieve their goals, and differentiates peacekeeping from its less effective cousin, counterinsurgency. It recommends a new international division of labor, whereby actual military forces hone their effective use of compulsion, while UN peacekeepers build on their strengths of persuasion, inducement, and coercion short of offensive force.

Award: 2021 Book Award, International Security Studies Section (ISSS), International Studies Association

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Abstract
Historically, civil wars ended in one-sided victory. With the end of the Cold War, however, the very nature of how civil wars end shifted: wars became two times more likely to terminate in negotiated settlement than in victory. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the proportion of victories has increased, especially for civil wars that include a terrorist group; wars are also ending less frequently. Why would civil war termination vary by time-period? The literature on civil wars looks to three basic types of causes: domestic structural factors, bargaining dynamics, and types of international intervention. Current explanations cannot account for why civil wars would end differently in different time periods because, as Kenneth Waltz might say, they are “reductionist” in nature. Material and ideational factors constitute the international political environment, which varies in different time periods. This environment drives outside actors' normative strategies of viewing victory, negotiation, or stabilization as the appropriate solution to civil war. These norms, in turn, directly affect how civil wars end. A novel, three-part methodological approach using quantitative analysis, case studies, and original content analysis demonstrates that civil wars tend to end the way external actors think they ought to end.Historically, civil wars ended in one-sided victory. With the end of the Cold War, however, the very nature of how civil wars end shifted: wars became two times more likely to terminate in negotiated settlement than in victory. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the proportion of victories has increased, especially for civil wars that include a terrorist group; wars are also ending less frequently. Why would civil war termination vary by time-period? The literature on civil wars looks to three basic types of causes: domestic structural factors, bargaining dynamics, and types of international intervention. Current explanations cannot account for why civil wars would end differently in different time periods because, as Kenneth Waltz might say, they are “reductionist” in nature. Material and ideational factors constitute the international political environment, which varies in different time periods. This environment drives outside actors' normative strategies of viewing victory, negotiation, or stabilization as the appropriate solution to civil war. These norms, in turn, directly affect how civil wars end. A novel, three-part methodological approach using quantitative analysis, case studies, and original content analysis demonstrates that civil wars tend to end the way external actors think they ought to end.

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Abstract
UN peacekeeping was not designed to wield force, and the UN’s permanent five (P-5), veto-wielding Security Council members do not want the UN to develop a military capacity. However, since 1999, the UN Security Council has authorized all UN multidimensional peacekeeping operations under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to use force. The mandates do not serve to achieve the council’s stated goal of maintaining international peace, nevertheless, the council repeats these mandates in every multidimensional peacekeeping resolution. Neither constructivist accounts of normative change, nor the rational pursuit of stated goals, nor organizational processes can explain the repetition of force mandates. Instead, we draw on insights from small-group psychology to advance a novel theoretical proposition: the repetition of force mandates is the result of “group-preserving” dynamics. The P-5 members strive to maintain their individual and collective status and legitimacy by issuing decisions on the use of force. Once members achieve a decision, the agreement is applied in future rounds of negotiations, even when the solution does not fit the new context and may appear suboptimal, illogical, or even pathological. Privileging the achievement and reproduction of agreement over its content is the essence of group preserving. We present an original data set of all peacekeeping mandates, alongside evidence from dozens of interviews with peacekeeping officials, including representatives of all of the Security Council’s permanent members. We assess this original data using expected causal process observations derived from rationalist, constructivist, organizational, and psychological logics.

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Abstract
The United Nations (UN) has the largest deployed force in the world today. More than 110,000 UN peacekeepers are charged with keeping the peace in 16 operations across the globe. In both scholarly work and in American public opinion, UN peacekeeping has been assessed as largely successful. Currently all complex peacekeeping missions have the mandate, but not necessarily the capacity, to use force. In other words, the UN has moved from post-conflict peacekeeping and toward deploying in the midst of conflict with the authorization to use force to protect civilians. Howard addresses how to assess UN peacekeeping today, how to understand the differences between peacekeeping and peace enforcement, and what might need to change in order for UN peacekeeping to regain better success rates.

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Abstract
Individual political rights and civic national identity lie at the core of American democracy, and spreading democracy is a crucial component of American grand strategy. However, American policymakers have often supported the construction of rigid, group-rights-based institutions in ethno-religious conflicts even when the parties were not demanding such institutions. The pursuit of “ethnocratic” solutions not only runs contrary to American ideals, but it is also not pragmatic, in that it enables the creation of regimes that are fragile, divided, and often dependent on outside assistance to maintain peace. This article weighs hypotheses about the sources of foreign policy decision making stemming from three contending Weberian logics of social action: instrumental rationality, normative appropriateness, and habit. Drawing on causal-process observations during crucial decision moments in Bosnia and Iraq, I argue in favor of the plausibility of habit as a driver of U.S. foreign policy. This work furthers the theoretical development of the concept of habit, offers a means of studying social habits empirically, and suggests improvements for American foreign policy in ethnic conflict.

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Abstract
Why do some states transition, with foreign assistance, from "fragile" to "robust"? Scholars in state-building have argued that neotrusteeship is an effective strategy by which external organizations might build postconflict states. This article tests this hypothesis, and two related propositions, in a paired comparison of Kosovo and Timor-Leste. The two states are similar in many respects and both experienced regional peace enforcement operations to end violent conflict, followed by massive neotrusteeship operations. They have had divergent results, however, in postconflict state-building: while the state and economy are gradually becoming stronger in Timor-Leste, the same cannot be said of Kosovo, which continues to be plagued by high unemployment, low growth, corruption, and organized crime. I argue that many of Kosovo's problems can be traced back to the strategy of dividing international responsibility for neotrusteeship operations.

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Abstract
This article introduces the term “ethnocracy” as a regime type. In ethnocracies such as Bosnia and Lebanon, political parties are defined primarily along ethnoreligious lines, key state positions are allocated according to ethnic group membership, and educational and other institutions are officially segmented according to ethnic categories. While the introduction of ethnocratic regimes after violent conflict has sometimes coincided with a decrease in violence, it has also introduced new and institutional obstacles that render transition to liberal democracy difficult. This article defines ethnocracy, differentiates it from consociationalism, discusses its problems, addresses the puzzling phenomenon of ethnocracy promotion by liberal powers, and offers alternatives for those seeking to promote liberal democracy in postconflict, multiethnic societies.

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Abstract
Since the end of the Cold War, relations between the United States and the UN have oscillated between periods of friendship and friction. What accounts for the major changes in US-UN relations, especially in the realm of multilateral peace operations? This article argues that the two most significant turning points have come after the unexpected deaths of Americans: first, in Somalia when the William J. Clinton administration moved away from multilateral cooperation in UN peace operations, and, second, in the wake of the 9111 attacks that served to drive the George W. Bush administration in the other direction, toward the UN. In both instances, the administrations changed their positions from staunch multilateralism or unilateralism toward moderation. Under the Barack Obama administration, we can likely expect a continuation of moderate multilateralism. Keywords: United Nations, United States, peacekeeping, multilateralism.

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Abstract
Following closely the practice of peacekeeping, the literature on the subject has come in one small wave and then two larger ones. The first wave, during the Cold War, includes classic works focusing mainly on peacekeeping in wars between states. The second wave, at first inspired by the boom in peacekeeping shortly after the end of the Cold War, soon reflected disillusionment and focuses largely on failure and dysfunction, despite significant cases of success. The third and most recent wave also reflects a resurgence in peacekeeping but is newly concerned with systematic and methodologically rigorous analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) of basic empirical questions about the effects of peacekeeping and the sources of peacekeeping outcomes. Recent empirical studies have demonstrated peacekeeping’s effectiveness in maintaining peace, but related questions persist concerning the use of force, transitional administrations, which organizations most effectively keep peace, perspectives of the “peacekept,” and effects on democratization.

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Abstract
The United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) in Namibia was successful both in terms of implementing its mandate as set forth in Security Council Resolution 435, and in terms of creating the institutional and political conditions for ongoing political stability in Namibia. It is often argued that successful peace implementation is possible only with the consent of the warring parties, and with strong Security Council interests. This article argues that while these two elements were important, the ability of UNTAG to adapt to the needs of the post-war environment in Namibia was the critical factor sealing the stable Namibian peace. Evidence for the argument is derived primarily from personal interviews with many of the major actors, as well as unpublished UN reports.

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Abstract
The United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) was established in May 1991, in the midst of fighting during the Salvadoran civil war, where there was “no peace to keep.” The UN was invited by both sides of the conflict - the Salvadoran government and the opposition, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) - to monitor, under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, the human rights conditions in the country. In January 1992, the warring sides signed the Chapultepec Peace Accord, and ONUSAL expanded to an "active verification" mission, with civilian police, military, and eventually election monitoring divisions (but without changing its name or acronym). The mission was successful despite having started before there was a peace agreement to implement. Specialists on Central America have argued that, as of the mid-1990s, “of the UN's internal peacemaking efforts since the end of the Cold War, its work in El Salvador stands out as the most unambiguously successful.”

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Abstract
The United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) deployed to Namibia from April 1989 until March 1990. It was the UN's first attempt at engaging in multidimensional peacekeeping after the demise of the Congo operation (ONUC) in 1964. UNTAG differed from many previous UN peacekeeping operations in that its primary means and purpose were political (in organizing free elections and a democratic transition after decades of civil war and colonial rule), rather than military. The mission also brought about the innovation of several important peacekeeping mechanisms that are still in use today, namely, a western "Contact Group," an elaborate "information program," and most significantly, UN "civilian policing." Overall, the operation was successful on two fronts: first, in terms of implementing the Security Council Resolution 435 (29 September 1978) mandate, although the start of implementation was delayed by ten years; and second, by creating the conditions for ongoing political stability in post-independence Namibia. The main source of UNTAG's success stemmed from the leadership's insistence that the UN had to establish an operation that, in the eyes of the Namibian people, was legitimate, authoritative, and authentic. This focus on local legitimacy compelled the staff of UNTAG to learn directly from ordinary Namibians about how to assist in ending the civil war, and to adapt organizational routines to the specificity of the Namibian environment.

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Abstract
This chapter examines how the broad coalition of international actors that came to lead statebuilding efforts in Bosnia ended up supporting rigid ethnic group rights. This outcome is particularly puzzling because adhering to such principles leads to the institutionalization of states that are divided along rigid ethnic lines, paralyzed by reified ethnic animosity, and are generally incapable of being governed without significant external assistance. That is to say, in spite of statebuilders' pursuit of peace and democracy, they instead fostered negative peace and the creation of an "ethnocracy." Why? And how does this question relate to this volume's interest in coalitional behavior and the challenges multiple actors encounter as they engage in statebuilding? I answer these questions by focusing on the events and "critical junctures" that took place before and during the Dayton peace negotiations, which undergirded the Bosnian statebuilding process.

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Abstract
The issue of intervention in Bosnia poses a challenge to this shared assumption about the French elite's insulation from public opinion. This chapter will summarize how, in certain crucial ways during the time period in question-from the beginning of the war to the end of 1996-France's policy on Bosnia was influenced by the pressures of public opinion. We argue that public opinion worked in two ways: first, it provided general pressures over time that gradually influenced the direction of French policy; and second, usually in response to specific events on the ground that were captured by television cameras, it exerted intense pressure that contributed to the turning points in France's Bosnia policy. We show how the gap between French policy and public opinion, initially quite wide, gradually narrowed over time, as the government's policy shifted in the direction of public opinion.

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