Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/273955 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2022/152
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Rebuilding state legitimacy is a thorny challenge in the aftermath of civil wars. The international community has stepped in to support post-conflict states in rebuilding state capacity, sometimes replacing governments in providing public goods. Most notably, research shows that UN peacekeepers reduce violence and are de factosecurity providers. On the one hand, by providing a secure environment, UN peacekeepers may facilitate the functioning of domestic institutions, which could reap the reputational benefit of working with the UN. However, I argue that attribution problems and reputational costs may counter the positive impact of the UN's capacitybuilding efforts. The analysis assesses whether and how external provision of security affects citizens' trust towards formal institutions-that is, government and police. The empirical analysis focuses on the case of the UN mission in Liberia and combines subnational deployment data with three rounds of geocoded Afrobarometer surveys. The project provides insights on how international interventions affect an understudied aspect of state-building: the legitimacy of the institutions they are expected to assist.
Subjects: 
legitimacy
post-conflict
peacekeeping
trust
JEL: 
D74
F53
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-285-0
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.