The Role of the UN in International Crisis Termination, 1945-1994

Abstract

Assessing the efficacy of UN involvement in intemational crises may be made more difficult by the presence of selectioneffects. Selection effects introduce a sample bias that thwarts objective empirical assessment. The UN may onlyselect easy or inexpensive crises or it may select the most severe and intractable crises. To compensate for selectioneffects, I employ a Heckman model to test for the detem1inants of successful UN crisis abatement. In addition toovercoming selection effects, the Heckman method also simulates a realistic sequential decision process. The firststep of the process models the initial UN decision to enter into a crisis. The second step models the detenninants ofsuccess after censoring crises in which the UN did not become involved. Failing to model the two steps as nonindependentprocesses can produce inconsistent, non-reliable and biased estimates in the second equation. I estimatejointly the UN decision to become involved in a crisis and the effectiveness of that involvement. Observations areinternational crises from 1945 to 1994 identified by the lntemational Crisis Behavior (ICB) data set. UNinvolvement is largely a positive function of the duration of the crisis, crisis gravity, and the number of actorsinvolved. UN success is a positive fimction of mediation, calls for action, emergency forces, and observers. Crisisviolence undennines success. I discuss findings that suggest the factors that get the UN involved actually make itharder to achieve success.