Do UN peace operations lead to more terrorism? Repertoires of rebel violence and third-party interventions
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Author | Jessica Di Salvatore,Sara M. T. Polo,Andrea Ruggeri |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/13540661211072714 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211072714
European Journal of
International Relations
2022, Vol. 28(2) 361 –385
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661211072714
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JR
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Do UN peace operations lead
to more terrorism? Repertoires
of rebel violence and third-
party interventions
Jessica Di Salvatore
University of Warwick, UK
Sara M. T. Polo
University of Essex, UK
Andrea Ruggeri
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
Recent research suggests that UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) reduce conventional
violence. However, rebel groups have been increasingly using a combination of
conventional and non-conventional violence, for example, terrorism. Little is known
about whether and under which conditions PKOs shape rebels’ incentives to resort
to more terrorism. At the same time, existing research on the use of terrorism in civil
wars primarily focuses on domestic factors, thus overlooking the impact of external
shocks such as the deployment of PKOs. We argue that PKOs can have critical
unintended consequences inducing tactical adaptation in rebel violence as they alter the
government-rebels balance of power. Particularly, rebel groups that are militarily strong
prior to the UN arrival are incentivized to escalate terrorist violence to overcome the
physical barrier imposed by PKO forces and improve their bargaining position vis-à-vis
the government. Weaker groups, which in the absence of PKOs are more likely to use
terrorism, have not only limited capacity but also fewer incentives to escalate terrorism
when PKOs deploy. Leveraging new disaggregated data on rebel terrorist attacks during
civil wars, we provide the first global actor-level analysis of the relationship between
PKO deployments and changes in rebels’ tactical preferences for terrorist violence.
We find that, conditional on initial government-rebels power relations, PKOs can make
terrorism the weapon of the strong. Our study sheds light on the unintended effects
Corresponding author:
Andrea Ruggeri, Brasenose College, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of
Oxford, OX1 4AJ, Oxford, UK.
Email: andrea.ruggeri@politics.ox.ac.uk
1072714EJT0010.1177/13540661211072714European Journal of International RelationsDi Salvatore et al.
research-article2022
Article
362 European Journal of International Relations 28(2)
of peacekeeping, the causes of terrorism, and offers important policy implications for
several current PKOs deployed in the midst of violence.
Keywords
Civil wars, terrorism, peacekeeping, United Nations
Introduction
With the last generation of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs) being
frequently deployed to active conflicts (Fjelde et al., 2019; Hultman et al., 2019), Blue
Helmets have been facing new operational challenges. Chief among these is rebel groups’
use of terrorism as a tactic, a phenomenon which has recently grown in frequency and
magnitude (Findley and Young 2012; Stanton 2013; 2019; Fortna 2015; Thomas 2014;
Polo and Gleditsch 2016; Asal et al. 2019; Polo and González 2020). In relation to this
challenge, the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (United Nations,
2015)1 recommended that ‘UN troops should not undertake military counter-terrorism
operations’ (p. x). The UN deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, however, offered a
different opinion to the Security Council in 2016, stressing that ‘terrorism and violent
extremism are a reality in many contemporary conflicts, a reality which has to be dealt
with’.2 These statements reflect a timely and intense debate within the UN about whether
(and how) PKOs should directly deal with the threat of terrorism.
Studies of terrorism and peacekeeping have independently highlighted two important
empirical patterns. First, terrorist tactics are used frequently by rebel groups. Findley and
Young (2012: 290) estimate that between 56 and 63 percent of terrorist attacks are civil
war related. And yet, most explanations of rebels’ use of terrorism in civil war are domes-
tic-focused and rarely examine how external actors may tip the balance of power and
alter incentives for violence (e.g. Polo and Gleditsch, 2016; Stanton, 2013). Second, siz-
able deployments of peacekeepers reduce violence in civil wars (Di Salvatore, 2018;
Hultman et al., 2014; Ruggeri et al., 2013). These two empirical patterns are brought
together in Figure 1, which shows that the use of terrorism in civil wars has become more
frequent since the 1990s, with the number of UN troops deployed to civil wars also
increasing over the same period. These trends do not provide a causal relationship
between PKOs and terrorism but show that peacekeeping missions deployed to active
conflict are increasingly likely to face extremist violence. This article aims to shed more
light on why rebel groups resort to terrorism during civil wars by focusing on how exter-
nal interventions may disrupt the balance of power in civil wars. More specifically, we
ask how PKOs influence rebel terrorism and under what conditions PKOs could lead to
an escalation of terrorism by changing rebels’ tactical preferences. Based on previous
research, we would expect that the presence and size of a UN mission can deter terrorist
violence because PKOs’ monitoring, reassurance, deterrence and enforcement (Bove
et al., 2020) make resort to any violence less feasible.
However, we depart from existing studies that focus on aggregate levels of violence
and unpack the actor-specific heterogeneity of this relationship. We contend that PKOs
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