Negotiating peacekeeping consent: Information and peace outcomes

Abstract

The mixed record on civil war termination shows that it is a difficult task, one fraught with uncertainty and risk. Gaining consent for peacekeeping is one strategy policymakers and scholars forward to reduce these concerns. Formal and informal work argues that allowing peacekeeping serves as a costly signal of peaceful intentions; however, these models treat peacekeeping costs as exogenous. I argue that peacekeeping costs have an endogenous element and use consent for peacekeeping missions as a proxy measure. Three conclusions are evident. It is difficult to determine whether belligerents are insincere actors in a peace process or merely distrustful, but consent can tell us whether a ceasefire is precarious and therefore more likely to fail; peacekeeping is difficult but meaningful under some conditions, and reliable information can be taken from negotiating, not just war-fighting. These results qualify the extent to which peacekeeping, with its changing emphasis on consent, can improve its outcomes.