Peacekeeping without helmets: Do civilian deployments help protect civilians?

Can civilian personnel of UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) help protect civilians in conflict-affected countries? Existing studies on peacekeepers' effectiveness in protecting civilians are limited to uniformed personnel. This manuscript shifts the research focus to the civilian dimension of protection. It argues that civilian personnel reduce noncombatant targeting through manipulating its perceived efficiency. First, through their presence and monitoring activity, civilian peacekeepers raise reputational costs for onesided violence. Second, through facilitating local resistance to armed groups, civilian peacekeepers increase domestic costs of one-sided violence. Third, through supporting peaceful settlements, civilian peacekeepers increase the benefits of refraining from one-sided violence. Finally, through their information support to UN military operations, civilian peacekeepers augment the military costs for one-sided violence. All four mechanisms likely apply more to non-state armed groups than government-sponsored armed groups, because the former are most susceptible to international detection, domestic consequences, local conflict settlement and military costs. Using original data on local deployments of civilian personnel in 12 peacekeeping operations in Sub-Saharan Africa (1998-2021) together with existing data on local military deployments, spatial models test these arguments. The argument receives partial support. In the 2000-2011 period, civilian peacekeepers in greater numbers are negative associated with atrocities committed by non-state armed groups. The results have important implications for the composition and activity of PKOs with protection mandates.

Can civilian personnel deployments in UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) help protect civilians in conflict-affected countries? Existing studies on local peacekeeping effectiveness in protecting civilians are limited by their focus on military personnel deployments. This manuscript shifts the focus to civilian personnel deployments in PKOs. We know that civil war parties coerce civilians into providing support for them or to achieve private political and material aims. While civilians are the victims of these strategies, they are not without agencies and can sometimes protect themselves from attack. Building on these insights, the manuscript proposes three avenues through which civilian personnel may help protect civilians from violence. First, civilian peacekeepers may help deter violent coercion against non-combatants by buttresses UN military operations, e.g., though their close ties to local partners and information gathering. Second, civilian personnel in PKOs may help manage the political conflict underpinning strategies of targeting non-combatants, e.g., through mediation support. Third and finally, civilian personnel may help foster and facilitate non-violent resistance by civilians against armed groups and violent escalation through, e.g., early warning systems, inter-community meetings, reconciliation events, and normative messaging. Using original data on local deployments of civilian personnel in 12 peacekeeping operations in 10 Sub-Saharan African countries (1998-2021), spatial models provide evidence for this argument. Instrumental variable analyses support a causal interpretation of the relationship between civilian personnel deployments and the reduction in civilian killings by identity militias.