Peacekeepers as Signals

Abstract:

Peacekeeping – the deployment of international troops and monitors to war–torn areas – is an institution intended to help recent belligerents maintain peace. The literature on peacekeeping has exploded in the last fifteen years, but analyses of it as an institution promoting cooperation have been hampered by several methodological handicaps. One is a matter of case selection – the majority of studies examine only cases where peacekeepers are involved, with no comparison to cases of non–peacekeeping. The second is an endogeneity issue – peacekeepers are not deployed to conflicts at random, so analysis of their effects must begin with an analysis of where peacekeepers go. Recent studies of peacekeeping have begun to address the first problem, but much less has been done to remedy the second. We know very little about why peacekeepers are sent to maintain peace after some conflicts but not others. Peacekeeping missions operate with the consent of the belligerents; in a civil war, the consent of the government is particularly important. But there has been no systematic analysis of the conditions under which warring parties request or consent to peacekeeping by the international community. This paper begins to answer the question of why belligerents sometimes agree to be "peacekept" and sometimes do not by focusing on peacekeeping as a mechanism that enables warring sides to signal their intentions to one another.

Bob Keohane revolutionized the study of institutions in international relations by insisting that we think about the demand for international institutions. We follow in his footsteps here by concentrating on the institution of peacekeeping, and modeling the demand for it. We also build on Keohane?s work in general terms by thinking about how the willingness to bear the costs of acting within an institutionalized setting can serve as a signal. We conceive of peacekeeping as a costly signal of intent to abide by a peace agreement, and ask about what patterns of behavior we would expect to follow if this is an accurate conceptualization.

Notes: