Peacebuilding and the Consolidation of State AuthorityEvidence from Liberia

Robert Blair | Yale University

Research questions

• How do governments regain authority in the eyes of civilians after civil war and state collapse?

• What role do international institutions play in consolidating state authority?• Focus on United Nations peacebuilding

Framework

Pathologies of state collapse

• Devolution of political power from center to periphery and from state to non-state actors• State authority “ceases to be a factor in everyday life”

(Hansen and Stepputat 2001)• Political power is up for grabs and “local power-grabbers

grab it” (Zartman 1995)

• State consolidation reverses this process• Grabbing power back

Peacebuilding and state consolidation

Help or hindrance?

• Peacebuilders foster institutional development and reform (Doyle and Sambanis)

• Peacebuilders promote rule of state law (Zuercher 2006)

• Peacebuilders “crowd out” the state (Rubin 2008)

• Peacebuilders project “appearance of change” (Barnett and Zuercher 2009)

Peacebuilding helps Peacebuilding hinders

Argument

• State consolidation requires “building trust in the idea of the state” (Chesterman 2005)

• Peacebuilders act as “surrogates” for state authority• El Salvador: UN “acted as the state” (Pouligny 2006)• Haiti: UN “described in terms very similar to those used to

describe the state” (Pouligny 2006)• Kosovo: “UNMIKistan” (Higate and Henry 2009)• Liberia: “UNMIL and government, that the same thing”

(Gbarnga resident)

Argument

• As state surrogates, peacebuilders “lend credibility to a newly formed state” (Lake 2010)• “All of our contributions are to be totally attributed to the

government. Everything we do, the government is supposed to get the credit” (UNMIL, UNPOL)

• “We are like proxies for the government” (UNMIL, Milobs)

• At the same time, peacebuilders “subordinate informal or traditional institutions of authority” (Call 2008)

Testing the argument

• Focus on “most-likely case”• Liberia

• Use mixed methods to measure different dimensions of peacebuilding and state authority• 3-wave panel survey• Survey experiments• Lab-in-the-field experiments• In-depth, open-ended qualitative interviews

Setting

Liberia

• One of the world’s weakest states

• Today, most Liberians believe “decisions by traditional leaders should take precedent over formal law” (Siddiqi and Sandefur 2009)

DataPanel survey

• Panel survey of 242 communities• 3 war-affected counties• 20 randomly selected

residents per community• 4 non-randomly selected

local leaders• 2009, 2011 and 2013

Empirical strategy

• Measure civilians’ preferences for providers of security• State vs. traditional leaders vs. UNMIL

• Focus on criminal cases that fall unambiguously under state jurisdiction• E.g, murder

• Estimate effects of peacebuilding on civilians’ preferences for the state over traditional leaders

Empirical strategyIdentification

Measuring peacebuilding

• Proxies for three “types” of UN peacebuilding• Patrols• Interventions to resolve

impending or ongoing disputes

• Quick Impact Projects (QIPs)

Mitigating confounders

• Qualitative interviews with ~30 UNMIL personnel to understand selection process• How does UNMIL decide

where to intervene?• Who does UNMIL interact

with during these interventions?

Summary of results

• Patrols—large, statistically significant increase in preference for state over traditional authorities• The more frequent the patrols, the larger the effect• Effect persists even once peacebuilders begin to withdraw• No effect on preference for UNMIL• “Our mandate is to observe, mentor and advise. [This finding]

provides proof that the mission is somewhat succeeding, and that the method aligns with UNMIL's mandate: to remain in the background, and to be viewed strictly as support” (UNMIL, UNPOL)

Summary of results

• Interventions and QIPs—no effect• Potential explanation? Security over social service

provision? Necessity of face-to-face interactions?• “You have to let them know who you are, what you look like.

You have to interact with them” (UNMIL, UNPOL)• “We sit with them, eat with them, interact with them, and spend

time with them.” Many patrols are spent “just mingling” (UNMIL, Milobs)

Further results

• Lab-in-the-field experiments• Effects of peacebuilding on citizens’ compliance with state

authority, even in the absence of incentives, sanctions or “social norms” of compliance

• Survey experiments• Effects of peacebuilding on citizens’ support for traditional

mechanisms of justice that violate state law (e.g., trial by ordeal)

Contributions

• Peacebuilding and state consolidation now “virtually synonymous” with one another (Call 2008)

• Debates but scant empirical evidence on the nature of this relationship• Almost none at the sub-

national level

Contributions

• Peacebuilders strengthen state authority while weakening the authority of traditional leaders

• This effect persists even after peacebuilders begin to withdraw

• The strength of the effect depends on the frequency and intensity of contact between civilians and peacebuilders

Limitations and extensions

• Are these results specific to UNMIL?• Large, competent, almost universally supported by civilians• Krasno 2006; Blair, Blattman & Hartman 2011

• “The key variable here is the positive perception of the mission in Liberia to start with…. I wonder if you would be getting similar results in Haiti or DRC, even maintaining the same patterns of advocacy in support of government and everything else” (HQ, Civil Affairs)

Lessons for Colombia?

• Statebuilding is not merely a matter of public goods provision

• In peacebuilding, “branding” matters• UN may be different from other peacebuilders in this

respect

Thank yourobert.blair@yale.edu

Results

Survey

Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Prefers traditional

leaders

Prefers government

Prefers UNMIL

Weekly -0.25 0.25 0.01

[0.09]*** [0.09]*** [0.05]

Monthly -0.15 0.15 0.02

[0.06]** [0.07]** [0.03]

Yearly -0.07 0.05 0.03

[0.06] [0.06] [0.03]

Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Prefers traditional

leaders

Prefers government

Prefers UNMIL

Weekly -0.25 0.25 0.01

[0.09]*** [0.09]*** [0.05]

Monthly -0.15 0.15 0.02

[0.06]** [0.07]** [0.03]

Yearly -0.07 0.05 0.03

[0.06] [0.06] [0.03]

Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Prefers traditional

leaders

Prefers government

Prefers UNMIL

Weekly -0.25 0.25 0.01

[0.09]*** [0.09]*** [0.05]

Monthly -0.15 0.15 0.02

[0.06]** [0.07]** [0.03]

Yearly -0.07 0.05 0.03

[0.06] [0.06] [0.03]

Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Prefers traditional

leaders

Prefers government

Prefers UNMIL

Weekly -0.25 0.25 0.01

[0.09]*** [0.09]*** [0.05]

Monthly -0.15 0.15 0.02

[0.06]** [0.07]** [0.03]

Yearly -0.07 0.05 0.03

[0.06] [0.06] [0.03]

Why no effect on civilians’ preferences for UNMIL?

• “Sounds just like Haiti where our rating was always lower than the government and [the SRSG] said, ‘Judge us by our support to the government; we don't need to be liked’” (HQ, DPKO)

• “Our mandate is to observe, mentor and advise…. [This finding] provides proof that the mission is somewhat succeeding, and that the method aligns with UNMIL's mandate: to remain in the background, and to be viewed strictly as support” (UNMIL, UNPOL)

Results

List experiment

List experiment

Intuition

• Measure support for trial by ordeal• Traditional mechanism

for adjudicating criminal cases

• Prohibited under state law

• Widely practiced and supported in rural areas

List experiment

Empirical strategy

“Let say someone bust into your house and took something, and nobody knows who did it. I am going to tell you some different ways people can handle that matter. I want you to tell me how many ways you yourself support. Don’t tell me which ones; just tell me how many.”

• Call for the police• Just leave it alone and do

nothing• Call the UNMIL people• Call for sassywood (trial

by ordeal)

Results from list experiment

Effects of peacebuilding

Notes: Maximum likelihood estimator of respondents' list experiment “type” on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. All specifications include respondent-level and community-level controls. Standard errors in brackets.

Call for trial by ordeal

Call the police

Do nothing

Call UNMIL

Has interacted with UNMIL

-0.69 0.19 0.03 0.36

0.34 0.12 0.12 0.14