Interventions: How Peace Enforcement Affects Violence Against Civilians

United Nations Peacekeeping has proven to be remarkably effective at reducing violence against civilians - without using compellent force. A recent turn towards peace enforcement raises the questions: Does the use of force within a peace enforcement mandate affect the use of violence against civilians by an armed group? If this is the case, by what mechanism does this effect occur? This thesis provides two novel explanations on how the use of force by peacekeepers could affect violence against civilians by the targeted armed group. One predicts decreased- and the other one increased levels of violence. These explanations are tested on the Force Intervention Brigade, which was deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013. A most similar comparison between the three most powerful armed groups in North Kivu at the time is drawn and examined with the method of structured focussed comparison. The most similar comparison does not reveal a clear correlation. Yet, temporal order as well as anecdotal evidence give tentative support for the main argument of the thesis. It suggests that compellent force against an armed group leads to strengthened deterrence and physical separation, which ultimately results in fewer civilian targeting