Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Almost three decades ago the United Nations (UN) entered an era of multi-dimensional peacekeeping operations, in which civilian and uniformed personnel work together. At the same time, human rights promotion became an integral part of such missions. Due to data limitations, there is little systematic knowledge about how civilian staff impacts human rights standards in the countries UN peacekeeping operations are deployed. I address this lacuna in two ways. First, I briefly outline the importance of civilian staff in UN peacekeeping operations and their roles in promoting human rights. Second, I provide explorative descriptive statistics on the number of civilian personnel in UN peacekeeping operations and the occurrence of violence against civilians committed by state forces.

Why do armed groups switch sides during civil wars? Most theories of conflict assume that armed groups have a fixed alignment with the government throughout their entire life span, ignoring the fact that armed groups switch between fighting on behalf of and against the government. In this article, I propose a theoretical framework that integrates armed groups' willingness to switch sides and their capacity to do so. Armed groups are motivated to switch sides if it contributes to maintaining or improving organizational objectives. I therefore expect armed groups to switch sides as the number of other armed groups with the same alignment increases and when the state is weak. I also argue that armed groups require the capacity to switch sides in order to overcome the internal coordination problem. I propose that non-state armed actors that are the product of prior splintering are more homogeneous and cohesive than other groups. Hence, they are in a better position to attempt to switch sides. I test the propositions using a novel data set, the History of Armed Actors Dataset, containing data on when and where armed groups have switched sides during civil wars between 1989 and 2007. The results reveal that both incentives and capacity influence side switching.

Why are some UN peacekeeping operations (PKO) effective in reducing violence against civilians but others are not? While researchers have started to disaggregate PKOs to explain missions' success, most studies assume that the government is a unitary actor.

Event datasets on political violence, which are comprised of coded collected news reports, have enjoyed a renaissance within the academic community. The inclusion of civilian fatalities within these datasets is a promising and welcomed advancement regarding the availability of data on one-sided violence. However, these datasets are often criticised due to their heavy reliance on media records, which may be tainted by biases. So far, little attention has been paid to the specific problems that arise in the coding procedure with respect to one-sided violence. This article addresses such difficulties by discussing particular challenges presented by media biases and by providing empirical evidence from coding one-sided violence. Furthermore, solutions and strategies are offered to the issues that could affect the coding process, including increased transparency, definition-adaptation, and the use of appropriate statistical models.

United Nations peacekeeping operations (UNPKO) have been deployed in conflict-affected countries for decades. While we thoroughly understand what UNPKOs are mandated to do, there is little research on what activities peacekeepers actually do upon deployment in their host countries and in which sequence, if any. To address this gap, we formulate descriptive hypotheses about the number of implemented peacekeeping activities, the expansion toward new activity categories, and the sequencing of implemented activities. We use the novel Extended Peacekeeping Activity Dataset to evaluate our theoretical expectations for all UNPKOs deployed after the end of the Cold War until 2017. Our findings show that UNPKOs implement more activities over time. Yet, the expansion of UNPKOs' activities into new activity categories by generation (second, third, and stabilization) is not as clear-cut in practice as expected. Instead, there is a notable expansion of activities within activity categories—especially during third-generation UNPKOs. Finally, we find a security-first sequencing for second- and third-generation UNPKOs, while stabilization UNPKOs implement a high share of security activities long after initial deployment.

We present the MMAD Repressive Actors Dataset (MMAD-RA). The MMAD-RA is a new data source that provides systematic information on the repressive actors present at protest events in autocracies, including their type, tactics, and level of violence. The data is temporally and geographically fine-grained, allowing for analysis between and within more than 60 countries from 2003 to 2012. The MMAD-RA enables analysis of the variation in repressive actors deployed to protests and their behavior, as well as how these actors impact protest dynamics and outcomes across political and socio-economic contexts. We believe the data will be a valuable resource for pushing forward research on how repressive actors engage with mass protests.

Recent research has generated important new insights into the existence, behavior, and violent consequences of armedactors in civil wars. However, the lack of suitable information on actor relationships with the state means that studieshave been forced to assume that armed groups are either pro-government or anti-government and remain that wayfor the duration of their existence. Both assumptions severely limit our understanding of the armed actors themselves,as well as the violent dynamics they produce. This article introduces the Government and Armed Actors RelationsDataset (GAARD), which provides detailed information on all major armed groups and their fluctuating alignment withthe state between 1989 and 2007. GAARD identifies when armed groups fight with or against the government, andwhen they lack relationships with the government altogether. It further provides information on all changes in groupalignments and documents when and how these occurred. We demonstrate that more than 25% of armed groupschanged their alignments and showcase how this allows researchers to pursue original research on the drivers, dynamics,and outcomes of civil conflicts.

ABSTRACTPolitical science takes pride in objective and methodologically rigorous research. This should be reflected in a clear and concise writing style that convinces readers by the content of the research, not by the language used to report about it. This article demonstrates that this is true but only to a limited extent. It shows that—similar to recent findings from natural-sciences research—the frequency of positive words that political scientists use to describe their research has increased markedly in recent decades. At the same time, however, the magnitude of this increase is much less pronounced. The article discusses and analyzes potential explanations for this trend. We suspect that it can be attributed at least partly to changing norms in the discipline, in which research framed in a positive way is more likely to be published.