What is in a Mandate? Introducing the UN Peace Mission Mandates Dataset

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231159830
• Author: Sara Hellmüller,Xiang-Yun Rosalind Tan,Corinne Bara
• Date: 01 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Data Set Feature

Data Set Feature

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2024, Vol. 68(1) 166–192

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027231159830

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What is in a Mandate?

Introducing the UN Peace

Mission Mandates Dataset

Sara Hellmüller

1

, Xiang-Yun Rosalind Tan

1

, and

Corinne Bara

2



Abstract

UN peace missions are constantly evolving. Yet, we lack a detailed understanding of the

shifting types and objectives of peace missions beyond broad categorizations that

distinguish for instance between observer, traditional, multidimensional, and peace

enforcement missions. To address this gap, we present the UN Peace Mission Mandates

(UNPMM) dataset. With global coverage, 30 years of data between 1991 and 2020, a

broad scope that includes peacekeeping and political missions, and information on

41 mandate tasks, the UNPMM represents one of the most detailed and up-to-date

datasets on UN peace mission mandates. We use it to highlight how mission types,

objectives, and specif‌ic tasks have changed since the end of the Cold War, and to

analyze what factors inf‌luence the kind of missions the UN is willing to authorize. The

descriptive statistics and empirical analysis reaff‌irm the need for a greater disaggre-

gation of data on UN peace missions and their mandates.

Keywords

international peacekeeping, mediation, civil wars, conf‌lict management, conf‌lict

resolution

1

IHEID, Geneve, Switzerland

2

Department of Peace and Conf‌lict Research, Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Sara Hellmüller, IHEID, Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2, Geneve 1211, Switzerland.

Email: sara.hellmueller@graduateinstitute.ch

“The world is changing and UN peace operations must change with it if they are toremain

an indispensable and effective tool in promoting international peace and security”

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (United Nations 2014)

Introduction

UN peace missions are constantly evolving.

1

Observers note changes regarding the

types of missions established as well as their objectives: We are seeing more political

missions instead of large peacekeeping operations (Gowan 2010, 4) and a coercive turn

wherever peacekeeping operations are deployed, meaning robust conf‌lict management

measures involving the use of force to stabilize the security situation and protect

civilians (Karlsrud 2019,Curran and Hunt 2020,Duarte Villa and Jenne 2020). Besides

these general trends, however, we lack a detailed understanding of the shifting types

and objectives of peace missions. This is because existing mission categorizations have

remained at an aggregate level, distinguishing for instance between observer, tradi-

tional, multidimensional, and peace enforcement missions (e.g., Fortna 2004,Doyle

and Sambanis 2006). This means that most peace missions after the end of the Cold War

are lumped together under the broad label of multidimensional operations, with the only

distinction being whether they are authorized to use force or not. This arguably does not

account for the vast diversity of peace missions deployed since 1991 (Hellmüller et al.

2022).

One way of addressing this gap is by analyzing UN peace mission mandates.

Mandates give important indications on peace missions’scope and objectives –they are

the missions’“marching orders”(Security Council Report 2019). This paper presents a

novel dataset on UN Peace Mission Mandates (UNPMM).

2

The UNPMM codes the

mandate tasks of all UN peace missions between 1991 and 2020, offering a detailed

taxonomy of a total of 41 mandate tasks. Other authors have recently generated

disaggregated data on UN peace mission mandates (see Lloyd 2021,Clayton et al.

2021,Di Salvatore et al. 2022). The UNPMM extends the scope of these existing

datasets in three ways. First, while existing datasets on peace mission mandates mostly

focus on peacekeeping operations (PKOs), the UNPMM also includes political mis-

sions, meaning Special Political Missions (SPMs) and Special Envoys/Special Ad-

visors (SE/SAs). This inclusion allows us to analyze dynamics around mission types.

Second, the UNPMM presents a new inductive categorization of peace missions based

on a f‌ine-grained analysis of their individual mandate tasks, distinguishing between

minimalist, moderate, and maximalist objectives (Call and Cousens 2007). This ad-

dition enables us to explore how mission objectives change over time and across

contexts. Third, the UNPMM is currently the most spatially and temporally com-

prehensive dataset. It is global in reach, coding all UN peace missions around the world

up until 2020. This gives it an extensive empirical basis, including 113 peace missions

that are coded with one of the most detailed coding schemes available, which en-

compasses 41 different mandate tasks.

Hellmüller et al. 167