The Impact of UN Peacekeeping on the Strategic Escalation of Force by Belligerents

In this paper, I explore how the announcement of a peacekeeping operation (PKO) impacts the use of force by rebels. I hypothesize that after a mandate is passed in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) but before peacekeepers are on the ground, insurgents will strategically increase their use of force on the battle field and against civilians in order to maximize access to resources before the PKO arrives. A key element of this argument is the nature of a multidimensional PKO which has a mandate justified by Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Under Chapter VII, intervention requires minimal consent from host states to establish an operation. This minimal consent translates to the state’s ability to withhold consent at a local level, dictating where the UN operation is allowed to position itself. Thus, the state has the ability to move an operation into regions where state authority is contested, and bring that territory back under state control. In this fashion, UN intervention can be manipulated by the governing group, and could lead rebels to see UN intervention as a boost in power of their rival. This causes insurgents to try to commit more acts of violence as they strategically push for more territorial control within the country from which they receive new recruits, monetary resources, and natural resources before the UN operation arrives. I test this theory using a regression discontinuity design looking specifically at the three month window after UN PKO announcement but before boots are on the ground in order to analyze whether or not rebels increase battlefield violence and violence against civilians in this time period.Master of Art