A test of the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: Coups, democracy, and foreign military deployments
| Author | Joseph MacKay,Anthony Sealey,Anne Spencer Jamison,Jamie Levin,Abouzar Nasirzadeh |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320905626 |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A test of the democratic peacekeeping
hypothesis: Coups, democracy,
and foreign military deployments
Jamie Levin
St Francis Xavier University
Joseph MacKay
Australian National University
Anne Spencer Jamison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Abouzar Nasirzadeh
University of Toronto
Anthony Sealey
University of Toronto
Abstract
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
quantitativework focused specificallyon the incidence of coups. We askwhether sending peacekeepersabroad increases
the risk of militaryintervention in politics at home. Drawing on selectoratetheory, 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, deploy-
ment 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.
Keywords
coups, democratic peace, peacekeeping, selectorate theory
Introduction
How does participating in UN peacekeeping missions
impact troop-contributing countries (TCCs)? Expand-
ing on the logic of the democratic peace, several authors
suggest contributing peacekeeping troops abroad has a
democratizing effect at home. Such ‘democratic peace-
keeping hypothesis’ (DPH) arguments vary in their
causal logic, but commonly suggest peacekeeping facil-
itates the transmission and consolidation of liberal or
democratic norms and institutions in less democratic
TCCs (c.f. Lundgren, 2018; Norden, 1995; Andersson,
Corresponding author:
jlevin@stfx.ca
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(3) 355–367
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320905626
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