Spiral to Surveillance: The Effect of INGOs on Levels of Peacekeeper Misconduct

Abstract

s Over the last twenty years, the international relations literature has sought to understand the conditions in which peacekeeping operations (PKOs) occur and the efficacy of their presence. Much work has focused on PKOs’ relationship to civilians in civil conflict, but less is understood about the influences on peacekeeping missions’ quality. If PKOs commit human rights abuses, how might other actors deter exploitive PKO behavior in the domestic context? We argue international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) provide a monitoring and socializing effect on PKOs. Using the Peacekeeper Attributes (PKAT) and Transnational Social Movements (TSMO) datasets, we analyze peacekeeping missions from 2007 to 2013. Through zero-inflated negative binomial regression, we found that the presence of general INGOs decreases rates of misconduct, and human rights INGOs decrease rates of misconduct. However, we find that the presence of women’s rights-focused INGOs does not decrease rates of sexual misconduct among PKO troops.