{"id":2058782,"date":"2019-05-10T12:24:40","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T16:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=2058782"},"modified":"2019-05-10T12:25:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T16:25:19","slug":"united-nations-peacekeeping-operations-conflict-2058782","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/united-nations-peacekeeping-operations-conflict-2058782\/","title":{"rendered":"U.N. peacekeepers can shorten civil wars, but it takes lots of troops"},"content":{"rendered":"
United Nations peacekeeping operations can shorten civil wars, but need robust troop deployments to move parties toward negotiated settlements such as ceasefires and peace agreements, researchers say.<\/p>\n
While most research on PKOs measure their influence on maintaining postwar peace, a new study instead addresses the UN peacekeeping operations’ ability to increase the likelihood of a peaceful conflict resolution.<\/p>\n
“Since the end of the Cold War, UN troops have been entering active conflicts, often peacemaking, not peacekeeping,” says Michelle Benson, an associate professor in the political science department at the University at Buffalo. “And not all of these operations are created the same in their ability to facilitate faster negotiated settlements.<\/p>\n
“The UN is not only able to improve the conflict situation. It’s able to bring conflicts to a conclusion in a peaceful manner.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Peacekeeping forces in the range of approximately 10,000 troops significantly improve the likelihood of ending hostilities. Failing to meet those numbers will make the effort much less effective.”<\/p>\n
Benson and coauthor Jacob Kathman, associate professor of political science, used fine-grained monthly data sets built from Kathman’s UN peacekeeping troop data and the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s Uppsala Conflict Data Program. The findings appear in the Journal of Conflict Resolution<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n