Abstract
Elections are a prominent feature of war-to-peace transitions and a core business of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations. While elections can buttress peacebuilding, they also introduce competition and sometimes trigger violence. Do UN peacekeeping operations reduce electoral violence and, if so, how? This chapter draws on extant peacekeeping research to develop a nuanced answer to this question. On average, peacekeeping deployments reduce electoral violence, especially if peacekeepers provide electoral security, help organize elections, and educate voters. However, peacekeepers' support to elections sometimes falls prey to a goal conflict between democratization and stability with detrimental side effects for electoral security. Future research may consider how peacekeepers affect specific forms of electoral violence, whether the findings extend to non-UN peacekeeping and whether there are synergies between peacekeeping operations and other international organizations, and how peacekeepers' election support influences democratization in the long run.
Published Version
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