Keeping electoral peace? Activities of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their effects on election-related violence

Hannah Smidt

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2021, vol. 38, issue 5, 580-604

Abstract: In war-torn countries, elections are held to support peacebuilding, but they sometimes trigger new violence. While peacekeeping operations (PKOs) regularly accompany electoral periods, we lack systematic knowledge on how they influence election-related violence. I argue that variation in peacekeepers’ activities is fundamentally important: only if PKOs assist with securing and organizing elections can they reduce election-related violence. Using novel data on PKOs’ election-related activities and accounting for endogeneity in both peacekeeping deployment and activities, the analyses of all 630 elections in conflict-affected countries support this expectation. The result implies that the design of PKOs is crucial for effectively managing post-war political transitions.

Keywords: Peacekeeping; elections; election-related violence; peacebuilding; democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:38:y:2021:i:5:p:580-604

DOI: 10.1177/0738894220960041

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