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| 1 |
ID:
141817
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| Summary/Abstract |
Numerous recent field and laboratory experiments find that elections cause higher subsequent levels of collective action within groups. This article questions whether effects observed in these novel environments apply when traditional institutions are democratized. The authors test the external validity of the experimental findings by examining the effects of introducing elections in an indigenous institution in Liberia. They use a break in the process of selecting clan chiefs at the end of Liberia’s civil wars to identify the effects of elections on collective action within communities. Drawing on survey data and outcomes from behavioral games, the authors find that the introduction of elections for clan chiefs has little effect on community-level and national-level political participation but that it increases contentious collective action and lowers levels of contributions to public goods. These findings provide an important counterpoint to the experimental literature, suggesting that elections have less salutary effects on collective action when they replace customary practices.
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| 2 |
ID:
178714
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| Summary/Abstract |
Peacekeeping operations are integral to multilateral strategies to help establish stable, self-sustaining peace and development in countries coming out of civil war. While we know, from macro-level empirical studies, that these operations contribute to the durability of peace, the evidence on their effectiveness at the micro level remains scant. Using surveys and administrative data from postwar Liberia, we test the hypothesis that peacekeeping deployments build peace ‘from the bottom up’ through contributions to local security and local economic and social vitality. The hypothesis reflects official thinking about how peacekeeping works via ‘peacebuilding’. We create a quasi-experiment by applying coarsened exact matching to administrative data used in mission planning, identifying sets of communities that were similarly likely to receive bases. We do not find effects on local security measured in terms of physical victimization, fear of victimization, or migration patterns. We find only modest effects on socio-economic vitality. NGOs tend to work in areas where deployments are not present, contrary to the hypothesis. Thus, we are less inclined to believe that peacekeepers build peace from the bottom up, leaving macro-level mechanisms such as signaling and deterrence at the level of leaders as worthy of more attention. In terms of policy, peacekeeping missions should re-evaluate their methods for providing local security.
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| 3 |
ID:
161596
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| Summary/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.
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