Promoting Political Participation in War-torn Countries

Abstract

This article uses original survey data to study the effects of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) on the political attitudes and behaviors of ordinary Liberians. Three results emerge: (i) UNMIL has positive, statistically significant effects on political participation measured over multiple outcome indicators; (ii) UNMIL’s effects display heterogeneity across individual outcome indicators, most positive effects are concentrated around measures associated with participation in national politics as well as political interest and efficacy, while the effects on participation in local politics are mixed; and (iii) self-reported measures of citizens’ interactions with UNMIL military personnel and exposure to democracy and to human rights campaigns carried out by international actors have strong positive associations with political participation, suggesting that results are driven by security and nonsecurity mechanisms. This article discusses the implications of these findings and areas for future research.

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

“…Yet, as Finkel, Horowitz & Rojo-Mendoza (2012: 64) write: ‘[t]he impact of civic education in more chronically inhospitable contexts is still very much an open question’ (for exceptions, cf. Mvukiyehe & Samii, 2017; Mvukiyehe, 2018).…”

“…Mvukiyehe & Samii (2017) provide experimental evidence that local education campaigns implemented by peacekeepers together with a Liberian civil society organization increased peaceful political participation and encouraged people to report election violence (cf. Mvukiyehe, 2018). Evaluating local election-education events contributes evidence to this debate.…”

“…I argue that peacekeepers’ election-education events provide civilians with information that helps them resist violence-inciting disinformation (Blattman, Hartman & Blair, 2014; Collier & Vicente, 2014; Mvukiyehe & Samii, 2017; Mvukiyehe, 2018; Sharma, 2019). This information may mitigate fears, reduce political alienation and counter political elites’ approval of violence.…”

“…Reinforcing this learning effect, election-education events signal the PKO’s interest in a specific locality. For instance, in Liberia, seeing a military patrol signalled protection and made civilians less afraid (Mvukiyehe, 2018). In contrast to patrols, however, unarmed civilian peacekeepers who organize the election-education events may signal interest but not necessarily protection.…”

“…Extant research shows that such information stimulates participation in national politics, such as voting (Collier & Vicente, 2014) or contacting government officials (e.g. Mvukiyehe, 2018). The provision of politically relevant information via election-education events should generally increase people’s political efficacy.…”