Do child soldiers influence UN Peacekeeping?

Bakaki, Zorzeta; Hinkkainen, Kaisa

doi:10.1080/13533312.2016.1173512

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Finally, Tynes and Early (2015) highlight other structural factors, such as democracy, that are likely to decrease the risk of child soldiering. At the same time, however, the link between child soldiers and conflict duration might lead to additional justifications for external interventions: the rationale behind this is that a third-party intervention could not only address the conflict as such, but also the use of child soldiers (Bakaki and Hinkkainen, 2016; Tynes and Early, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are only a few notable exceptions that explicitly focus on their impact. Bakaki and Hinkkainen (2016) empirically demonstrate that child soldiering in civil war increases the likelihood of peacekeeping interventions. Haer and Böhmelt (2016a, 2016b) find that child soldiers might improve the military effectiveness of rebel organizations, but ultimately have a very detrimental impact on post-conflict peace.…”

Section: Child Soldiers Civil War and Conflict Durationmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars?

Haer¹,

Böhmelt²

2017

Cooperation and Conflict

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While we know why rebels may recruit children for their cause, our understanding of the consequences of child soldiering by non-state armed groups remains limited. The following research contributes to addressing this by examining how rebels' child recruitment practice affects the duration of internal armed conflicts. We advance the argument that child soldiering increases the strength of rebel organizations vis-à-vis the government. This, in turn, lowers the capability asymmetry between these nonstate actors and the incumbent, allowing the former to sustain in dispute. Ultimately, the duration of armed conflicts is likely to be prolonged. We analyze this relationship with quantitative data on child soldier recruitment by rebel groups in the post-1989 period. The results confirm our main hypothesis: disputes are substantially longer when rebels recruit children. This work has important implications for the study of armed conflicts, conflict duration, and our understanding of child soldiering.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Child Soldiers Civil War and Conflict Durationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars?

Haer¹,

Böhmelt²

2017

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…3 To account for covariates that may be systematically related to both the presence of female rebel combatants and the occurrence of peacekeeping operations, we consider several control variables. All of the following are retrieved from the replication data of Bakaki and Hinkkainen (2016). First, we include political, economic, and demographic features of the countries in which the conflicts took place.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On one hand, conflicts are less likely to receive an intervention the larger the government army is, suggesting that a UN mission is not desirable if the governmental forces can win a conflict through military force (Fortna, 2004; Gilligan and Stedman, 2003). On the other hand, Bakaki and Hinkkainen (2016) argue that rebels’ use of child soldiers attracts post-conflict peacekeeping deployments since the presence of child soldiers increase the risk of conflict recurrence, thereby making peacekeeping more desirable.…”

Section: Where Do Peacekeepers Go?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Female rebels and United Nations peacekeeping deployments

Mehrl¹,

Dworschak²

2021

Cooperation and Conflict

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How does the presence of female rebel combatants during conflict influence the likelihood of United Nations post-conflict peacekeeping deployment? While past literature on peacekeeping emphasizes the role of conflict attributes and security council interests, only few studies investigate the importance of belligerent characteristics. We argue that, because dominant gender stereotypes paint women as peaceful, female rebel combatants lead domestic and international audiences to perceive conflicts in which they fight as more severe. Given that recent UN resolutions and mission mandates align with these stereotypes, this in turn, causes the UN to intervene and deploy peacekeepers. Multivariate regression models drawing on a global sample of UN post-conflict missions provide empirical support for our hypothesis. Our findings add to the growing body of literature emphasizing the role of women in combat roles, and contribute to the discussion on the UN’s Women, Peace, and Security agenda.

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“…(Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010: 28). Likewise, the work that explores non-traditional peacekeeping issues draws on the deepening debate in CSS to question the role of UN peacekeepers in the fight against HIV/Aids (Bratt, 2002), to advance gender in peacekeeping research (Olsson and Gizelis, 2014), or to assess the influence of child soldiers in UN peacekeeping (Bakaki and Hinkkainen, 2016). These studies extend the peacekeeping research agenda to much broader questions in contemporary politics while echoing analytical developments in CSS.…”

Section: Critical Security Studies and Un Peacekeepingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Security Studies

Peoples¹,

Vaughan‐Williams²

2016

Routledge Handbook of Security Studies

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Since the 2000s, concerns about the lack of theoretical developments in the peacekeeping literature have mostly been raised by critical scholars. On the one hand, Paris denounced the "cult of policy relevance" that led to neglect the "macrotheoretical questions about the nature and significance of these operations for our understanding of international politics" (2000: 44). On the other hand, critical theory assumes that theory is never politically neutral and that scholars should "be self-consciously theoretical and ask basic questions about what we are looking at and why, and what is excluded when we look at something in a particular way" (Bellamy, Williams and Griffin, 2010: 20). A critical approach to UN peacekeeping would then question the values and representations that inform peacekeeping and the political order that peacekeeping interventions shape, promote or sustain. Critical security studies (CSS) can be narrowly defined as gathering post-positivist analysis focused on human security and emancipation (Buzan and Hansen, 2009: 36). However, in a broader sense, CSS refers to a "reflexive field" (Salter, 2013: 1) that covers a variety of approaches ranging from critical theory to poststructuralism. It encompasses contrasting conceptions of security but that share the "assumption that security threats and insecurities are not simply objects to be studied or problems to be solved, but the product of social and political practices" (Aradau et al., 2015: 1). Applied to UN peacekeeping, CSS aims to understand how peacekeeping works in practice and its political and social implications. It questions agency and takes into account non-traditional security issues. For almost two decades, there has been a growing interest in emerging issues in peacekeeping such as health, gender, or child soldiers. Yet, the process that expands UN peacekeeping practices remains under-theorised within the peacekeeping literature, as well as within CSS. This chapter relies on CSS theoretical and methodological tools to study the specific case of the rise of environmental practices in UN peacekeeping. Since the 2000s, UN peacekeeping missions have been increasingly confronted with environmental challenges, especially as a consequence of their own expansion. This chapter explores the multiple transformations that resulted from growing environmental concerns. Not only does it discuss the impact of peacekeeping activities on the environment as an unintended consequence of the UN intervention, but it questions the discourses and power dynamics within the UN system that create the conditions for such an ecological impact. Drawing on the concepts of securitisation and environmentalisation, the chapter shows how peacekeeping has been framed as relevant to environmental policies, while contributing to a broader process of securitisation of the environment.

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Do child soldiers influence UN Peacekeeping?

Cited by 15 publications

References 60 publications

Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars?

Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars?

Female rebels and United Nations peacekeeping deployments

Critical Security Studies

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