United Nations Peacekeeping and the Politics of Authoritarianism

What impact does UN peacekeeping have on the politics of authoritarianism in host countries? This book advances a theoretically innovative and empirically rich answer to this question: while the UN does not intentionally promote authoritarianism, it faces a number of constraints and dilemmas that give rise to what we call authoritarian enabling. Enabling can occur through two mechanisms, capacity building and the creation of a permissive environment, which enhance the ability of host governments to engage in authoritarian behavior and signal to them that doing so is low-cost.

This book illustrates these two mechanisms with four in-depth case studies of UN peacekeeping operations: UNTAC in Cambodia, MONUC/MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MINUSTAH in Haiti, and UNMIL in Liberia. The analysis is based on primary interview data from over 200 interviews. The authors explore the sources of enabling, identifying the trade-offs and contradictions that give rise to these two mechanisms. They include respect for sovereignty, the importance of working relations with the host government, the tension between democracy and other mission goals, the pressure to demonstrate quick results, and divergences within missions and the broader international community. While enabling stops short of the outright promotion of authoritarianism, it explains why the UN's activities often appear to contradict its stated objectives and the outcomes it delivers fall short of its goals. In addition to its theoretical and empirical contributions, the book suggests how these dilemmas and challenges can be overcome.