Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn the post-Cold War era, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has been an effective civil conflict mitigation tool. On the path to peacekeeping, the UN Security Council often signals its growing likelihood to deploy an operation by passing resolutions addressing the conflict. How do these signals affect violence levels in a pre-operation environment? We posit that conflict actors have incentives to improve their relative positions through violence as the UN signals its likelihood to intervene. Using a new dataset that links UNSC resolutions to active civil wars from 1989 to 2014, we find that resolution passage is significantly related to an increase in combatant use of anti-civilian violence. Additionally, as the signal strengthens with the passage of a greater number of resolutions, violence increases. Thus, although deployed peacekeeping operations may effectively protect non-combatants, the process leading to deployment can produce a dangerous environment for civilians.

AbstractThis study examines how different conflict-management attempts over a broad time period affect the dynamics of one dimension of international–civil militarized conflict (I-CMC): the hostility–peace levels of relationships between states involved in those conflicts as well as the frequency and severity of their interactions. Using new data compilations on these conflicts and the management efforts embedded in them, we assess how effective each of the approaches and various contextual influences are in moderating state–state hostilities as well as the relative effectiveness (e.g., mediation versus military intervention). Our empirical analysis confirms that conflict-management efforts generally, and with respect to different management types, do not alter the overall hostile–peaceful relationships between states involved in I-CMCs. The empirical results on micro effects of conflict management produced clearer impacts from conflict-management approaches and contextual factors. In terms of mitigating conflict frequency, negotiation, military intervention, and peace operations had some negative effects on the time density of future militarized disputes. All approaches (the above three and mediation) were able to delay the onset of new disputes. Various contextual factors enhanced or mitigated the effects of conflict-management approaches.

This study examines international-civil militarized conflicts (I-CMCs), those that lie at the intersection of violent intra- and interstate conflict. The data compilation identifies I-CMCs and the different conflict management approaches specifically used to manage them (i.e., negotiation, mediation, legal, peacekeeping, sanctions, and military intervention). We describe the patterns of conflict management in I-CMCs over the period 1946–2010, with respect to both serious civil and interstate conflicts. Among the key findings are that conflict management in general is very frequent (about 18 attempts per interstate confrontation and much more for serious internal conflict) and mediation is by far the most frequent approach.

How does border settlement—that is, the management of salient territorial conflict—affect the prospects for negative peace? Using recently released data on dyadic interstate relationships during the period 1946–2001, we build on territorial peace research to argue, predict, and find three connections between border settlement and negative peace. More specifically, border settlement: (a) increases the likelihood that a dyad is at negative peace; (b) raises the likelihood that dyads transition from rivalry to negative peace relationships; and (c) consolidates negative peace—by impeding transitions toward rivalry relationships. We confirm each of these findings with a commonly used measure of border settlement, as well as an alternative indicator of unsettled borders: civil wars. These findings cumulatively support our argument, demonstrate the importance of studying relationships outside the rivalry context, and suggest that border settlement plays a critical role in the emergence and consolidation of negative peace.

Once the Cold War ended, the international community expanded the mandates given to its peace operations. Traditional thinking suggests that this trend occurred because of an increase in the number and a shift in the type of conflicts prevalent in the international system. This "demand side" explanation argues that as predominant conflict in the system changes from interstate to intrastate, the tasks shift accordingly from traditional peacekeeping to peacebuilding. Despite the persistence of this argument, no systematic studies exist that empirically test its validity. Considering conflict and peace operation patterns since 1945, we analyze whether conflict occurrence, conflict type, negotiated agreements, and international intervention changed fundamentally after the Cold War. We find that patterns of interstate and intrastate conflicts provide some limited support for this demand side argument, but the greatest support comes from the proliferation of negotiated agreements that terminate conflicts, in which disputants often request peacebuilding assistance.

Most efforts in international relations scholarship focus on understanding war and conflict. To the extent that peace is considered, it is often treated as an afterthought or a control condition. In this paper, we construct a five-level scale of dyadic peace. We then operationalize the scale using indicators suggested by different scholarly literatures as well as measures derived from case studies. Further, we advocate the use of "anchor cases" and pair-wise comparisons to code dyadic peace in non-rivalry periods. We conclude with a pilot study of the scale, as applied to pairs of states over the period From 1816 to 2006.

The 1990s saw the emergence of a new research agenda focused on enduring rivalries, longstanding competitions between the same pair of states. The original Diehl & Goertz dataset on international rivalries has been perhaps the most widely used collection to study those rivalries. Here, that dataset is extended through 2001, and additional criteria beyond the time-density approach are used to define a population of rivalries. In the first half of the article, the conceptual and operational bases on which the original rivalry collection was based are described. The article explores each of the dimensions of the rivalry concept and the associated operational criteria. The 'linked conflict' dimension of the rivalry concept is made more explicit in the discussion of rivalry dimensions. The article then presents and discusses all the major changes made vis-‡-vis the earlier rivalry collection. In the second half of the article, empirical analyses highlight the conceptual dimensions of rivalry. Particular attention is devoted to the issue of rivalry symmetry, with an investigation of rival power capabilities. In an analysis on the linked conflict dimension, the article examines war occurrence and sequence in rivalry (most of which occurs at or near the outset of the rivalry) as well as the outcome and waiting times between disputes. The article concludes with a comparison of this dataset to another prominent rivalry collection.

This article reexamines the democratic peace in a longitudinal fashion. We extend the democratic peace proposition beyond isolated militarized disputes or wars to longer-term interstate rivalries. Rivalries of all types are rare among democratic dyads; there is only one case of enduring rivalry between consistently democratic states, & most conflictual relationships between democracies remain confined to isolated conflict. Second, we assess the effect of regime change on rivalry behavior when a regime change precipitates or ends a jointly democratic dyad. Enduring rivalries that include both joint democratic & nondemocratic periods exhibit significantly lower dispute propensities while both rivals are democratic, although proto-rivalries show much smaller differences. Importantly, the pacifying effect of democracy appears to strengthen over time after the transition to joint democracy, which is consistent with the onset & deepening of democratic norms. Both proto & enduring rivalries show a decreasing propensity for militarized conflict within a year of the transition to joint democracy, & this propensity decreases almost to zero within five years. Our results generally confirm & extend the robust effects of the democratic peace. 4 Tables, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.

We present a statistical model that predicts the force size of United Nations peacekeeping operations, relying on experiences from thirty-nine peacekeeping operations over the period 1945-1994. As we expected, the type of mission performed by the peacekeeping operation was a major factor in determining force size. Although the second-generation mission category includes a panoply of different mission types, these new peacekeeping operations still on average require almost 12,000 more personnel than observer operations. Our results indicate, however, that the size of a peacekeeping operation is not solely a function of mission type; the context of the conflict situation matters as well. Specifically, the severity of the violence in the crisis precipitating UN intervention has a significant effect, as does the addition of more actors to the conflict. In general, the geographic characteristics of the area (except the size of the deployment area), the type of conflict (civil or interstate), and superpower involvement had no statistically significant effects.