A test of the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: Coups, democracy, and foreign military deployments

2020 ◽  
pp. 002234332090562
Author(s):  
Jamie Levin ◽  
Joseph MacKay ◽  
Anne Spencer Jamison ◽  
Abouzar Nasirzadeh ◽  
Anthony Sealey

While peacekeeping’s effects on receiving states have been studied at length, its effects on sending states have only begun to be explored. This article examines the effects of contributing peacekeepers abroad on democracy at home. Recent qualitative research has divergent findings: some find peacekeeping contributes to democratization among sending states, while others find peacekeeping entrenches illiberal or autocratic rule. To adjudicate, we build on recent quantitative work focused specifically on the incidence of coups. We ask whether sending peacekeepers abroad increases the risk of military intervention in politics at home. Drawing on selectorate theory, we expect the effect of peacekeeping on coup risk to vary by regime type. Peacekeeping brings with it new resources which can be distributed as private goods. In autocracies, often developing states where UN peacekeeping remuneration exceeds per-soldier costs, deployment produces a windfall for militaries. Emboldened by new resources, which can be distributed as private goods among the selectorate, and fearing the loss of them in the future, they may act to depose the incumbent regime. In contrast, peacekeeping will have little effect in developed democracies, which have high per-troop costs, comparatively large selectorates, and low ex-ante coup risk. Anocracies, which typically have growing selectorates, and may face distinctive international pressures to democratize, will likely experience reduced coup risk. We test these claims with data covering peacekeeping deployments, regime type, and coup risk since the end of the Cold War. Our findings confirm our theoretical expectations. These findings have implications both for how we understand the impact of participation in peacekeeping – particularly among those countries that contribute troops disproportionately in the post-Cold War era – and for the potential international determinants of domestic autocracy.

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Levin ◽  
Dan Miodownik

AbstractThere is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to reconstruct shattered states and establish a robust and durable peace in the wake of internal armed conflict. Indeed, nearly every UN peacekeeping intervention since the end of the Cold War has included disarmament provisions in its mandate. Disarmament is guided by the arrestingly simple premise that weapons cause conflict and, therefore, must be eradicated for a civil conflict to end. If the means by which combatants fight are eliminated, it is thought, actors will have little choice but to commit to peace. Disarmament is, therefore, considered a necessary condition for establishing the lasting conditions for peace. To date, however, no systematic quantitative analysis has been undertaken of the practice of disarmament and the causal mechanisms remain underspecified. This paper is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap. In it we outline a series of hypotheses with which to run future statistical analyses on the effects of disarmament programs. The success of negotiations and the durability of peace are, perhaps, the single most salient issues concerning those engaged in conflict termination efforts. We therefore focus the bulk of this paper on a review of the supposed effects of disarmament on negotiating outcomes and war recurrence.


2021 ◽  
pp. 211-232
Author(s):  
Dianne Kirby

This chapter examines the religious Cold War, spawned by the West, and its impact throughout Europe. The religious Cold War was a diverse, multidimensional, complex global phenomenon whose salience varied according to the stage of the conflict, geographical location, cultural underpinnings, as well as national and local dynamics. Europe, where the Cold War began and ended, was a multiconfessional continent wherein Christianity, with its intimate historical, cultural, and indeed national links, was the dominant religion. The chapter focuses on the impact of the East–West power struggle on the churches and how they met its various challenges, especially fear of nuclear obliteration. During the Cold War religious organizations negotiated the arms race, détente, decolonization, globalization, secularization, and the growing importance of the developing world. The chapter examines their religio-political evolution as they encountered the Cold War, their contribution to ending it, and their position in the post-Cold War global order.


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Elsig ◽  
Karolina Milewicz ◽  
Nikolas Stürchler

Since the end of the Cold War, multilateral treaties have again become a central vehicle for international cooperation. In this article, we study states’ commitment to 76 multilateral treaties concluded between 1990 and 2005. The article offers a systematic account of present-day multilateral treaty-making efforts and asks what explains variation in states’ participation as witnessed in the act of treaty ratification. We test existing explanations and provide a novel argument that accounts for the strong participation of new European democracies in multilateral treaties. We find that regime type and being part of the European Union (EU) strongly affect treaty ratification. New EU democracies, in particular, are much more likely to ratify multilateral treaties than are other new democracies.


Author(s):  
Ibrahim Kawuley Mikail ◽  
Ainuddin Iskandar Lee Abdullah

The world is undergoing the process of transition ranging from orthodox traditionalist to the modern colonial system of multipolar divergent domination of colonial agenda and later transcending to bipolar twin ideological dominance of western capitalist and easterncentral planned economy with modern technological development. This trend has really transformed the global scenario to enter into modern clutches since Second World War upto the terminal point of the cold war in early 90’s. Meanwhile, the new post-cold war global agenda came up with new changes such as “modern advancement, revolution in information, communication and technology, globalization, liberalization of economy, democracy and democratization process among others. Content analysis was the methodology that the researchers adopted in this paper. The study reveals that globalization and modernity have detrimental impacts on African culture and politics in areas of its political system, economy, education, religion and socio-psychological systems. The paper recommends that Africansshould maintain their culture, norms and values as well as enhance the national boundary and sovereignty so as meet the challenges of globalization.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-304
Author(s):  
Benedetto ZACCARIA

The present work focuses on the role played by Jacques Delors, who held the presidency of the European Commission between 1985 and 1995, in fostering public attention to the question of the so-called democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). It argues that Delors’s involvement in this question was a direct consequence of his post-1989 view of European integration as a “collective” project, that is, a political enterprise based on the direct consensus and involvement of its citizens. This perspective was shaped by the reconfiguration of the role of the European Community in the post-Cold War European scenario and by the impact that “democratic” transitions in Central and Eastern Europe had on the Community itself. As an advocate of a “collective” Europe, Delors criticised the Maastricht Treaty for its failure to push towards political integration, publicly disputing the democratic character of the EU since its very inception.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 313-347
Author(s):  
Itamar Y. Lee

This article adopts a unique angle to analyze China’s Middle East policy in “Chasing the Rising Red Crescent: Sino-Shi’i Relations in the Post-Cold War Era.” With the end of the Cold War and the political renaissance of Islam, the author argues that China’s strategic approaches towards the Middle East have changed fundamentally. The rise of China on the Middle East coupled with the strategic ascendancy of Shi’i Islam in the Middle East invites a strategic window for the emerging architecture of global geopolitics and world economy. The aim of Lee’s study is to make clear the historical trajectories and evolving strategic calculations in China’s Middle East policy and its global implications by reviewing Sino-Shi’i relations in general and introducing Chinese strategic interactions with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas in particular. Since the establishment of zhongguo zhongdong wenti teshi [Chinese Special Envoy for Middle Eastern Affairs] in 2002, China’s economic presence and political clout in the Middle East including the Shi’i region have been advanced obviously. Sino-Shi’i relations in the post-Cold War era, thus, should be seriously examined not only for understanding China’s strategic perceptions of the Middle East but also for explaining the pattern of Chinese foreign behaviours, as well as for expecting the impact of China’s rising in the region and its geopolitical implications for the future of China-U.S. relations


Author(s):  
Klein Pierre

This contribution gives an account of the actions undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations in order to restore peace and security in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, in the context of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. It describes the measures taken by the UN Security Council, the mandate and deployment of UNPROFOR —the UN peacekeeping operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina— and the actions undertaken in support thereto by other organizations such as NATO and the Western European Union. This chapter also discusses the legal issues that gave rise to discussion in that context (particularly regarding the extent of the authorization to use force given by the Security Council and the degree of control exercised —or not— thereon) and the impact of this precedent on the rules relating to the use of force in self-defence, on the one hand, and on the use of coercive measures under Chapter VII of the Charter in co-operation with regional organizations or arrangements, on the other.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Judith Sebastian Kurishumoottil Manalil

“Power was the most important subject, as far as we were concerned, during the war” (6). The 20th century was dominated by the two World Wars, the Cold War and the post-Cold War conflicts. The 21st century appears to be no better. Just two decades into the new millennium and we are already experiencing the tremors of outbreaks across the globe, notably referred to as terrorism, ethnic conflict, civil wars and hybrid and special operations warfare. These nonstate, intrastate, and interstate violence have had an impact on the lives of millions of people. It is in this context that Booker longlisted work Jokes for the Gunmen (2019) by the Palestinian-Icelandic author Mazen Maarouf may be read.   Maarouf weaves together twelve stories that offer a kaleidoscope of insights on the impact of war on the civilian population.  Jokes for the Gunmen is grounded in a conflict zone that is for the most part unspecified, except in the “Gramophone” where it is Lebanon (55) while in “Juan and Ausa” it is Spain. Thus the narratives are universalized to reinforce the idea that war is an act of violence against the global citizen and everybody and everywhere is its target. The characters are never given names except for Hossam in “Other –People’s –Dreams - Syndrome” and Juan and Ausa in the eponymous story. This buttresses the design of the universality of the narratives. The author seems to drive home the fact that no one can claim immunity from war and this becomes only too obvious with the narrative space being inundated with fatalities. Again, as we march along the narratives, we find that the boundaries between combatants and civilians, battlefronts and domestic spaces have almost blurred. Everyone is now at the combat zone and the combat zone is everywhere. The private domain of the hearth and the home that once signified security and well-being has also been transformed into dangerous territory.    


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunes Gokmen

AbstractThis paper tests Huntington’s the Clash of Civilizations hypothesis evaluating the impact of civilizations on militarized interstate disputes. In particular, we investigate whether countries that belong to different civilizations tend to be more involved in conflict than countries that belong to the same civilization. We show that over the period of 1816-2001, dissimilarity in civilization in a dyad has no effect on conflict involvement. However, even after controlling for temporal dependence, and for geographic, political, military and economic factors, being part of different civilizations in the post-Cold War period brings about 63.6% higher probability of conflict than belonging to the same civilization, whereas this effect is insignificant during the Cold War.


Author(s):  
Yosuke Nagai

The security-development nexus has become one of the most important agendas especially in the field of peacebuilding in response to urgent needs in complex humanitarian assistance in war-torn areas. With the changing dynamics of conflict since the end of the Cold War, recent peacebuilding efforts have employed a combination of security and development paradigm to ameliorate severe human rights situations in different contexts. In particular, the functionality of security-development nexus has been well observed in post-conflict scenarios where broader state-building, institutional, security, and governance-related reforms were implemented to ensure sustainable peace processes. In addition, it has been criticized in terms of the imposed liberal values. This article critically analyzes the security-development nexus and attempts to examine how and why the nexus has become essential to the post-Cold War peacebuilding framework. It further elucidates the role of the United Nations (UN) as the leading actor in peacebuilding operations, especially in the form of UN Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) which have played a significant role in establishing and consolidating peace in various conflict-ridden societies.


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