Abstract

This dissertation examines three aspects of peacekeeping research within the overall framework of peacekeeping effectiveness and its impacts on troop-contributing countries (TCC). This dissertation comprises three different papers that employ three different methodological approaches. The first paper investigates why the military failed to achieve its primary mandate of the protection of civilians (POC) in the wake of continued killings of civilians despite the presence of peacekeepers. The general expectation from the military is to contain or eliminate violent incidents and civilian deaths in areas of responsibility (AOR). Utilizing a case study of Beni, DRC —a highly violent and militarized area in Eastern DRC— a novel dataset is created based on the daily situation reports from one battalion deployed in Beni DRC from January 2014 to September 2017. The spatial analysis at the village and AOR levels found that night patrolling effectively reduces civilian deaths. However, in a highly contested area, military operations leave the civilian population in the vicinity more vulnerable as they are more prone to retaliatory actions from armed groups. The second paper examines the effects of peacekeepers' fatalities on troops' contributions to UN peacekeeping missions. It is hard to justify the killings of soldiers in a conflict with no imminent national security interest/threat, which can create domestic resistance and might pose challenges regarding troops' contributions to UN peacekeeping missions. This study seeks to uncover why countries are increasingly contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions despite suffering casualties and deaths using large N cross-sectional data between 1990 to 2022 across different regime types and countries with varying levels of development. The findings suggest no evidence for casualty sensitivity arguments. Once deployed, TCCs increase their contribution in response to fatalities, more so in the peacekeeping mission with an enforcement mandate. Developing countries continue to provide peacekeepers in response to fatalities. The third paper examines the impact of peacekeeping dependence on the domestic civil-military relationship in troop-contributing countries, explicitly asking the question about the preference of military officers regarding military intervention in responding to the domestic political crisis. It does so with a survey experiment among the military officers within the Nepalese Army. The evidence suggests that military officers are generally less supportive of military intervention in domestic crises but when future participation in UN peacekeeping missions is at stake, military officers do support intervention in domestic politics.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2023

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Powell, Jonathan

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

School of Politics, Security and International Affairs

Degree Program

Security Studies

Identifier

CFE0009789; DP0027897

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0027897

Language

English

Release Date

August 2023

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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