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Peace operations and associated peacekeeping research have changed dramatically over time. This article reviews the extent to which two prominent strands of peacekeeping research – behavioral-quantitative/quantitative and critical – have reflected changes in peacekeeping practice. Following critiques of how these approaches have fallen short, the article provides a research agenda for each research approach. The article concludes by addressing ways in which the two approaches might be bridged and the barriers to such collaboration therein.

Purpose The purpuse of this study is to answer the following two questions. Do conflict management efforts mitigate the recurrence and severity of civil conflict? If so, how? Do some conflict management strategies fare better than others in these tasks? This study theorizes about the connection between the costliness of a conflict management strategy – with respect to both the disputants and third parties – and civil conflict outcomes. This theory produces two contradictory predictions: that more costly strategies either increase or decrease violence. This study not only adjudicates between these two possibilities but also incorporates the role of timing. The early use of more costly strategies, for example, may encourage disputants to reduce violence in civil conflicts. Design/methodology/approach To evaluate the predications that the authors derive from their theoretical argument, the authors quantitatively analyze the effect of conflict management strategies’ relative cost on various measures of civil conflict recurrence and severity. The authors first identify the set of international–civil militarized conflicts (I-CMCs) during the period 1946–2010. I-CMCs contain two dimensions – interstate and intrastate – making them the most complex and dangerous form of militarized conflict. To each I-CMC, the authors then link all third-party attempts to manage the I-CMC’s civil conflict dimension. Finally, after developing quantitative indicators, a series of regression equations explore the relationships of primary interest. Findings Two main findings emerge. First, when third parties use a relatively more costly conflict management strategy to manage a civil conflict (e.g. a peace operation or military intervention, as opposed to mediation), the severity of the conflict increases, while conflict recurrence rates remain unchanged. Second, this study uncovers a trade-off. The early use of a relatively more costly management strategy lowers a civil conflict’s severity in the short-term. It also, however, increases the likelihood – and speed with which – civil conflict recurs. The timing of certain conflict management strategies matters. Originality/value Scholars typically isolate conflict management strategies in number (i.e. consider efforts as independent of one another, even those within the same conflict) and kind (i.e. examine mediation but not peace operations). This study, in contrast, includes the following: the full menu of conflict management strategies available to third parties – negotiation, mediation, adjudication/arbitration, peace operations, sanctions and military intervention – over a lengthy time period (1946–2010); theorizes about the relative merits of these strategies; and considers the timing of certain conflict management efforts. In so doing, it highlights a policy trade-off and proposes promising areas for future research.

Because existing issue classification schemes omit prominent issues (e.g., domestic armed conflict) or contain significant within-category heterogeneity, theorizing about the role of issues in international conflict processes has stagnated. Our project jump-starts it again, by independently—and systematically—reconceptualizing and gathering data on five issues connected to dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) during the period 1900–2010: land (borders), maritime (borders), islands, civil conflict, and coups. After conceptually introducing these issues and embedding them within a larger framework, we describe and apply our MID-Issue data. These efforts show that (i) the MID dataset’s issue classification scheme does not systematically capture our issues, (ii) events in 37.58% of dyadic MIDs connect to domestic armed conflict—a prevalence not on the field’s radar, (iii) some factors promote issue-based international conflict, but only via indirect channels, and (iv) significant value even derives from a further conceptualization of “territorial issues” (broadly defined).

Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.

This study examines international-civil militarized conflicts (I-CMCs), those that lie at the intersection of violent intra- and interstate conflict. The data compilation identifies I-CMCs and the ...

In their 2018 article, Diehl and Druckman address several hurdles that may hinder the effectiveness of multiple mission peace operations. One of these hurdles is the extent to which two or more mis...

Research on international conflict management remains largely siloed, with studies omitting conflict events and focusing on disparate conflict management strategies (e.g., mediation, or peacekeepin...

This study examines how different conflict-management attempts over a broad time period affect the dynamics of one dimension of international–civil militarized conflict (I-CMC): the hostility–peace levels of relationships between states involved in those conflicts as well as the frequency and severity of their interactions. Using new data compilations on these conflicts and the management efforts embedded in them, we assess how effective each of the approaches and various contextual influences are in moderating state–state hostilities as well as the relative effectiveness (e.g., mediation versus military intervention). Our empirical analysis confirms that conflict-management efforts generally, and with respect to different management types, do not alter the overall hostile–peaceful relationships between states involved in I-CMCs. The empirical results on micro effects of conflict management produced clearer impacts from conflict-management approaches and contextual factors. In terms of mitigating conflict frequency, negotiation, military intervention, and peace operations had some negative effects on the time density of future militarized disputes. All approaches (the above three and mediation) were able to delay the onset of new disputes. Various contextual factors enhanced or mitigated the effects of conflict-management approaches.

Do aspects of current UN peacekeeping operations affect the willingness of that body to authorize new operations? Our theoretical arguments center on the capacity and costs of the organization – sp...

This forum explores how societal contexts affect how instructors teach introductory undergraduate courses in international relations (IR), global politics, and international studies. Contributors teach at universities in China, Ecuador, India, Morocco, South Africa, the United Kingdom–Scotland, and the United States. Because instructors vary the structure, content, and pedagogical approaches in their courses (and perhaps most in their introductory courses) to account for their students’ backgrounds, conditions, and paradigms, the discipline can learn about contemporary global patterns by putting regionally diverse pedagogical approaches in conversation with each other. A concluding essay explores emergent patterns of a global IR and sets up points for further conversation. The authors hope sharing their pedagogical strategies will inspire instructors to devote the creativity necessary to improve how they teach introductory IR courses in their own societal contexts.

In her first two award-winning books (The Trouble with the Congo and Peaceland respectively), Severine Autesserre was at the forefront of two innovations in peacekeeping research. First was the use...

Peacekeeping has undergone several distinct eras of expansion and contraction in terms of the numbers of operations deployed.1 The greatest expansion occurred in the 1990s as the UN dramatically in...

This data article reviews the revised “peace data,” describing the motivations behind them and offering a general description of the different peace scale levels—severe rivalry, lesser rivalry, negative peace, warm peace, and security community respectively. A brief overview of the evolution of peace and rivalry for the 1900–2015 period is presented. Peace in the international system has increased over time, with a decline in rivalries and an increase in security communities being the most notable findings. The article concludes with a discussion of how the peace data might be used to address new questions in international relations research or reconfigure existing ones.

Why do some territorial disputes defy settlement? Through what mechanism might these resistant territorial disputes be settled? We propose that the answer involves three individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. First, the dispute must receive attention—i.e., be (re)placed and (re)prioritized on the dyad's agenda. Second, governments need altered preferences that expand the bargaining range so they can break deadlock and pursue settlement. Finally, disputing states need third-party assistance to facilitate, locate, incentivize, and support a settlement of their protracted dispute. We test this “AAA Model” in post–World War II Latin America. To do this, we first theorize the particular form of the general model; in post–1945 Latin America, attention, altered preferences, and third-party assistance operate through the mechanisms of militarization, democratization, and mediation respectively. We then identify resistant territorial disputes and advance a novel, multimethod research design to evaluate our hypotheses—one that relies more heavily on within-case counterfactual analysis. An extensive series of these counterfactual analyses, along with a statistical analysis, produce consistent, significant support for our model. When resistant territorial disputes in post–1945 Latin America have attention, altered preferences, and third-party assistance simultaneously, they always settle; when they lack any one factor, however, settlement never occurs.

Previous work on an Asian peace has been imprecise on where, when, and why it occurs. This study examines different levels of state-based peace starting with the absence of war; unlike other treatments, however, we examine the incidence of civil war as well as the traditional interstate war. We then consider a more stringent threshold for peace, focusing on the absence or diminution of violent conflicts short of war, specifically incidents of militarized disputes and lesser conflicts. Finally, we look a broader conception of peace (“positive peace”) and examine all state relationships in Asia along a peace scale, which ranges from serious rivalries to negative peace to integrated security communities. Our findings indicate the strongest evidence for Asian peace with respect to avoiding interstate war. Nevertheless, there are significant conflicts involving violence and the threat of military force that persist in the region. A number of rivalries, many of them long-standing, continue to raise the specter of war. In addition, positive peace in Asia is rare for interstate relations and isolated to a few states for internal peace.

Peace operations now conduct a wide range of different missions, but much of the scholarship has focused only on one mission at a time, and most often this is the task of monitoring cease-fires. This article draws attention to the phenomena of multiple missions within peace operations, and discusses some of the hurdles to understanding how such missions influence one another. We begin by providing a descriptive analysis of 11 different peace missions carried out by UN operations over the 1948–2015 period. Following a review of multiple-mission studies to date, we call attention to several problems with approaches taken for understanding peacekeeping outcomes. We then elucidate seven considerations or challenges in understanding how missions interact with one another and influence each other’s success, providing guidelines for how to analyse them.

This chapter considers Richardson’s classic arms race model and his book Arms and Insecurity in relation to the association between arms races and war. The analysis begins with a short review of the academic debates and empirical research about arms races and war. This is a prelude to an examination of the dynamics of arms races as they are specified by Richardson in his book and in his arms race model. Following is an evaluation of the specific claims about arms races and war derived from the model as well as Richardson’s own empirical analyses about the connection between the two phenomena. Although in light of subsequent research, a number of Richardson’s arguments seem misguided or inaccurate, other insights were validated by later studies or remain understudied but worthy of future research.

This chapter traces my pedagogical evolution as a senior scholar who has taught international relations for over 35 years. Formative experiences as a graduate teaching assistant and assistant professor are reviewed, and I discuss how I moved away from reliance on lectures and the perceived need to cover extensive amounts of material. Specifically, I look at five major changes in how I approach teaching international relations in the following topical areas: (1) international relations theory, (2) current events, (3) content coverage, (4) the needs of programs and departments, and (5) generational differences among students, respectively. Strategies and illustrations are elucidated for each change.

Peace is an elusive concept with many different meanings. Traditionally, it has been equated with the absence of war or violence, but such “negative peace” has limited value as it lumps wildly disparate situations together, such as rivalries (India–Pakistan) and close political relationships (e.g., European Union). Nevertheless, this conception remains the predominant approach in theory, research, teaching, and policy discourse. “Positive peace” definitions are much broader and encompass aspects that go beyond war and violence, but there is far less consensus on those elements. Conceptions include, among others, human rights, justice, judicial independence, and communication components. Best developed are notions of “quality peace,” which incorporate the absence of violence but also require things such as gender equality in order for societies to qualify as peaceful. Many of these, however, lack associated data and operational indicators. Research on positive peace is also comparatively underdeveloped. Peace can also be represented as binary (present or not) or as a continuum (the degree to which peace is present). Peace can be applied at different levels of analysis. At the system level, it refers to the aggregate or global conditions in the world at a given time. At the dyadic or k‑adic level, it refers to the state of peace in relationships between two or more states. Finally, internal peace deals with conditions inside individual states, and the relationships between governments, groups, and individuals. Aspects of peace vary according to the level of analysis, and peace at one level might not be mirrored at other levels.

Multilateral treaties today rarely touch on subjects where there is no domestic law in the United States, In the U.S. federal system, this domestic law may not be national law, but law of the constituent States of the United States. However, in light of the U.S. Constitution Article VI, treaties in their domestic application unavoidably federalize the subjects they address. The most sensitive issues arise when a treaty focuses on matters primarily or exclusively dealt with in the United States at the State or local level. Although U.S. practice allows for some flexibility to accommodate State/local interests, the federal government reserves the authority to compel compliance in case a State adopts a rule contrary to an international agreement which would place the United States in breach of its international obligations. This article examinees the role constituent States in the U.S. system play in treaty implementation through their legislative authority. The subject is of interest to determine the conditions under which State interests and authority might be taken into account for undertaking and implementing U.S. treaty obligations. This article examines the processes under which subnational implementation of international treaties can be brought to fruition and when it fails; when there are Uniform Law Commission products and drafting expertise available to facilitate implementation at the State level; and whether these approaches might enhance the ability of the United States to implement treaty obligations.

How does border settlement—that is, the management of salient territorial conflict—affect the prospects for negative peace? Using recently released data on dyadic interstate relationships during the period 1946–2001, we build on territorial peace research to argue, predict, and find three connections between border settlement and negative peace. More specifically, border settlement: (a) increases the likelihood that a dyad is at negative peace; (b) raises the likelihood that dyads transition from rivalry to negative peace relationships; and (c) consolidates negative peace—by impeding transitions toward rivalry relationships. We confirm each of these findings with a commonly used measure of border settlement, as well as an alternative indicator of unsettled borders: civil wars. These findings cumulatively support our argument, demonstrate the importance of studying relationships outside the rivalry context, and suggest that border settlement plays a critical role in the emergence and consolidation of negative peace.

We contend that the dyadic approach should be employed as a theoretically informed choice. All choices of units in modeling are simplifying. Current criticisms do not render dyadic approaches useless forms of simplification. Indeed, depending on the question and theory, dyadic approaches may be the most appropriate simplification of reality for scholars of international studies. The basic structure of the dyad, a two actor interaction, remains a useful simplification for multiple key questions in conflict research. As such, we offer a conditional defense of the dyadic approach in light of three elements: (i) the choice of level of analysis, (ii) the assumption of independence of cases, and (iii) the benefits accrued by past dyadic research.

Concern about war and large-scale violence has long dominated the study of international security. To the extent that peace receives any scholarly attention, it primarily does so under the rubric of “negative peace:” the absence of war. This article calls for a focus on peace in international studies that begins with a reconceptualization of the term. I examine the limitations of negative peace as a concept, discuss “positive peace,” and demonstrate empirically that Nobel Peace Prize winners have increasingly been those recognized for contributions to positive peace. Nevertheless, scholarly emphasis remains on war, violence, and negative peace—as demonstrated by references to articles appearing in a leading peace-studies journal and to papers presented at International Studies Association meetings. Peace is not the inverse or mirror image of war and therefore requires different theoretical orientations and explanatory variables. The article concludes with a series of guidelines on how to study peace.

‘Where you stand depends on where you sit', or Miles’ Law, is an old adage that claims that opinions and judgements are formed based on one's own perspective. In bureaucracies, policy positions and...

In June 2015, a special un panel issued the latest in a series of reports on the reform of un peace operations. The report includes a large number of recommendations that constitute major policy changes as well as those concerned with addressed administrative and disciplinary problems associated with peacekeeping deployment. This article focuses on four significant sets of recommendations dealing with the former set: mandate reform, expanding collaborative activities with other actors, taking preventive action, and accelerating rapid reaction. For each of these, we discuss some of the barriers to implementation and associated limitations. The conclusion is that the suggested reforms might be adopted on an inconsistent and case-by-case basis with the risk that they will appear once again in a future un report.

Standard conflict management studies treat individual conflict management attempts, whether the same or different techniques, as independent of one another across time and space. This article considers the implications and lays out research agenda for several configurations that relax that assumption: (a) multiple approaches in the same conflict; (b) spatial and temporal interrelationships; (c) interactions with ongoing hostilities; and (d) techniques in different phases of the conflict. Included is a discussion of how the articles in the special issue fit within these frameworks.