Politics or Performance? Leadership Accountability in UN Peacekeeping

• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/00220027211028989
• Author: Kseniya Oksamytna,Vincenzo Bove,Magnus Lundgren
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 66(1) 32 –60

Politics or Performance?

Leadership Accountability

in UN Peacekeeping

Magnus Lundgren

1

, Kseniya Oksamytna

2

,

and Vincenzo Bove

3

Abstract

International organizations face a trade-off between the need to replace poorly

performing leaders and the imperative of preserving the loyalty of influential or

pivotal member states. This performance-politics dilemma is particularly acute in

UN peacekeeping. Leaders of peacekeeping operations are responsible for ensuring

that peacekeepers implement mandates, maintain discipline, and stay safe. Yet, if

leaders fail to do so, is the UN Secretariat able and willing to replace them? We

investigate newly collected data on the tenure of 238 civilian and military leaders in

thirty-eight peacekeeping operations, 1978 to 2017. We find that the tenures of

civilian leaders are insensitive to performance, but that military leaders in poorly

performing missions are more likely to be replaced. We also find evidence that

political considerations complicate the UN’s efforts at accountability. Holding mis-

sion performance constant, military leaders from countries that are powerful or

contribute large numbers of troops stay longer in post.

Keywords

international peacekeeping, political survival, international organization,

accountability

1

University of Gothenburg, Sweden

2

King’s College London, United Kingdom

3

University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Magnus Lundgren, University of Gothenburg, Box 100, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.

Email: magnus.lundgren@gu.se

Journal of Conflict Resolution

ªThe Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027211028989

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Article

Lundgren et al. 33

Do international organizat ions (IOs) hold staff in key po sitions accountable for

performance? In appointing and dismissing senior officials, IO secretariats are for-

mally required to hire and fire on merit, but they frequently weigh considerations of

merit against the anticipated reactions of the official’s country of nationality. This

presents IOs with a dilemma. If power and patronage of IO member states offset

considerations of merit and can shield officials from accountability for poor perfor-

mance, it may undercut organizational effectiveness and weaken legitimacy. At the

same time, IOs need to preserve the loyalty of member states, whose support is

crucial for their operational activities, by keeping their nationals in prestigious or

lucrative positions for a significant amount of time.

The dilemma between politics and performance has been investigated in national

bureaucracies but is rarely explicitly discussed, let alone systematically studied, in

IOs. A key reason is that, at the international level, officials’ performance is difficult

to observe and member states’ interest in specific positions difficult to gauge. The

case of UN peacekeeping allows circumventing these barriers. In UN peacekeeping

missions, top civilian and military leaders are expected to prevent violence, protect

civilians, ensure peacekeepers’ discipline, and keep peacekeepers safe. Mission

performance can thus be evaluated using indicators such as battle deaths, civilian

victimization, peacekeepers’ misconduct, or casualties among peacekeepers.

Furthermore, since countries contribute troops to specific missions voluntarily, we

can estimate their ability and interest in exerting influence regarding particular

leadership positions.

We investigate whether political influence or performance affects how long

peacekeeping leaders stay in post. Using event history analysis, we examine newly

collected data on 238 civilian and military leaders in thirty-eight UN peacekeeping

missions between 1978 and 2017. We make three key findings. First, civilian and

military leaders’ tenures are varyingly sensitive to mission performance. Whereas

Force Commanders in poorly performing missions face a higher likelihood of

replacement, we observe no such ass ociation for Special Representati ves of the

Secretary-General. Second, Force Commanders are particularly unlikely to endure

in post in missions that fail to stop armed violence, while sexual misconduct by

peacekeepers does not affect the likelihood of replacement. Third, political consid-

erations influence the tenure of peacekeeping leaders in several ways. Leaders from

large troop contributors or permanent members of the Security Council are more

likely to endure in post, and they may also be partly shielded from the effects of poor

mission performance.

These findings enhance our understanding of IOs in several ways, further devel-

oped in the conclusion. To begin with, this is the first quantitative study of how

accountability operates in UN peacekeeping. While the academic and policy litera-

tures have discussed peacekeepers’ misconduct and their alleged inaction in the face

of violence, prior research has not provided a systematic understanding of how the

UN Secretariat reacts to such incidents. Second, we demonstrate the existence of

politics-performance trade-offs in IO senior staffing, extending this debate from the

2Journal of Conflict Resolution XX(X)