Political and Economic Consequences of Humanitarian Military Interventions in Targeted Nations

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of humanitarian military interventions (HMIs) on conflict termination, conflict escalation, economic output and democratic performance using panel data on 144 countries covering time-period of 1960-2018. There is no scholarly consensus about whether HMIs are an effective mean of enforcing peace and causing economic and political stabilities. Our contribution is empirical and we use recently developed database on HMIs by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. The results from multivariate analyses suggest that neutral interventions have positive impact on conflict termination whereas biased interventions, particularly against rebels, tend to escalate conflict. Neutral interventions have no significant negative impact on output whereas HMIs biased against governments and rebels lead to around 9 -8 percent decrease in per capita output. Finally, neutral and against governments HMIs lead to increase in democracy score. We estimate both contemporaneous and long-run decaying effects and as robustness check also carry out IV regressions with instruments constructed using Lewbel method.