Enforced Kumbaya

Sammanfattning: This paper looks at whether an implementation of a UN operation in a civil conflict effects the signing of local peace agreements. It is limited to the Africa and Middle East regions. The theory applied, and tested, is the Liberal Peace Theory. To test the question a new dataset is constructed by merging disparate datasets and data into one. The UCDP dataset on violent conflicts, and the PA-X local peace agreements dataset is used. They are complemented with data on GDP per capita from the Gapminder Organisation, and UN peacekeeping missions. A fixed effects regression model is applied on the constructed panel-dataset. Control variables include time-fixed effects, country-specific effects, and a time-varying country specific variable (GDP per capita). Several sensitivity analyses are also applied, including a logistic regression (to test for similar results). Likewise, three time-periods for the UN are tested: year of deployment, three years of deployment, and entire mission. The paper finds a positive relationship between the presence of a UN peacekeeping operation and the signing of local peace agreements. No such relationship is found within one or three years of UN operation. The effects remain when conducting the analysis separately by region.