Enabling autocracy? Peacebuilding and post-conflict authoritarianism in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6060698 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah Von Billerbeck (0000-0003-0154-1944, University of Reading, corresponding author), Oisín Tansey (0000-0002-8883-7336, King's College London) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 698-722 |
| Publication date | 2019-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of International Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1354-0661 • E-ISSN: 1460-3713 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066118819724 |
| OpenAlex | W2901823143 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 48 |
| References cited | 73 |
Does peacebuilding shape the regime type of countries where international missions are deployed? Most peacebuilding missions take place in authoritarian contexts, and seek to overcome the legacies of conflict by overseeing transitions to democratic rule; however, most regimes that experience peacebuilding still retain some form of authoritarian rule. In this article, we examine the extent to which international peacebuilding missions contribute to the consolidation of post-conflict authoritarian regimes even when their stated aims involve the promotion of democracy. We argue that international peacebuilders can act as enablers of authoritarianism in host countries. We distinguish this category of behaviour from explicit ‘autocracy promotion’, which implies intentional support to autocracy. Instead, enabling is often an unintended consequence, and we identify two mechanisms through which enabling occurs: by building the capacity of incumbent authoritarian leaders and by signalling a permissive environment for authoritarian behaviour for national actors. We illustrate our argument with the case of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Authoritarianism · Autocracy · Democracy · Democracy promotion · Democratization · Development economics · Economic system · Economics · Peacebuilding · Peacekeeping · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · International Development and Aid · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration
How Not to Do UN Peacekeeping
Decorating the “Christmas Tree
Police Peacekeeping
United Nations Peacekeeping and the Politics of Authoritarianism
Building Peace after Self-Determination and Partition
Local Knowledges in International Peacebuilding
Sustainable Business as a Strategy for Peacebuilding
Economic consequences of keeping peace in Afghanistan through Indonesian soft power approach
Developing peace
A clustered randomized controlled trial to assess whether Living Peace Intervention (LPint) reduces domestic violence and its consequences among families of targeted men in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Illiberal Peacebuilding in UN Stabilization Peace Operations and Peace Agreements in the CAR, the DRC and Mali
Deploying to Protect
A Perturbed Peace
From Rubble to Renewal
UN Peacekeeping at 75
Productive contestation
(Re)Setting the boundaries of peacebuilding in a changing global order
Discourse change in international organizations
A prelude to revisionism? The stalemated peace model and the emergence of multipolarity in international order
Peace building and public administration
Multilateral counterinsurgency in East Africa
Sticking it out
Advocacy and Change in International Organizations
Peace in Digital International Relations
Token Forces
Oil and peace
Just Leaves in the Wind? Using Agent-Level Factors to Explain Variation in Human Rights Promotion Strategies
The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of Collective Conflict Management
Security Force Assistance to Fragile States
How United Nations peace operations can help overcome perils to post-conflict elections
Is European enlargement policy a form of non-democracy promotion
Post-conflict ethics, archaeology and archaeological heritage
A Quarter of a Century of Civilian Protection
To Serve and Protect’
External State Support for Rebel Groups and the Occurrence of UN Peacekeeping Operations
Civilian Protection in Theory and Practice
(Re)ordering the Mediterranean
Security assistance to surrogates – how the UAE secures its regional objectives
The role of security assistance in reconfiguring Tunisia’s transition
Unpacking the ‘unintended consequences’ of peace operations
Theorizing Decision-Making in International Bureaucracies
Conceptualising autocracy promotion as commercialisation
Introducing the Peacekeeping Mandates (Pema) Dataset
Leadership Selection in United Nations Peacekeeping
Digital Authoritarianism and the Global Technology Industry
Criminal accountability at what cost? Norm conflict, UN peace operations and the International Criminal Court
Militarism, states and resistance in Africa
UN Peacekeeping and Democratization in Conflict-Affected Countries
Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization
The Taming of Democracy Assistance
Foreign Pressure and the Politics of Autocratic Survival
Do No Harm
The Politics of Authoritarian Rule
Costly Democracy
International Politics of Authoritarian Rule
Regime-Building
Failed Statebuilding
Defending Democratic Norms
Taking Sides in Peacekeeping
Whose Peace
Electing Peace
From War to Democracy
Building States to Build Peace
The Wartime Origins of Democratization
Peaceland
Political Institutions under Dictatorship
The Trouble with the Congo
Competitive Authoritarianism
Democracy in Divided Societies
Beyond Autocracy Promotion
Constructing a Framework of Authoritarian Diffusion
United Nations Peacekeeping, Democratic Process, and the Durability of Peace after Civil Wars
Monuc and SSR in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Case Studies
Too good to be true? United Nations peacebuilding and the democratization of war-torn states
How Autocracies Fall
Diversity, Conflict and Democracy
Diffusion-Proofing
Post-conflict elections and the process of demilitarizing politics
The fog of peace
Life of the Party
Does Foreign Aid Support Autocrats, Democrats, or Both
The Durability of Revolutionary Regimes
The Perils of Presidentialism
Voting for Change in the DRC
Explaining the Enforcement of Democracy by Regional Organizations
Democratization after Civil War
Democracy prevention
Post-civil war democratization
What Do We Know About Authoritarianism After Ten Years
The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East
Ties to the Rest
Signals of Support From Great Power Patrons and the Use of Repression During Nonviolent Protests
Economic Performance And Survival In New Democracies
Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders
What the Democratization Literature Says—or Doesn’t Say—About Postwar Democratization
On Democratization and Peacebuilding
Local Ownership and UN Peacebuilding
The United Nations and Democracy
The Importance of Winning
Implementation in practice
Promoting democracy – promoting autocracy? International politics and national political regimes
What autocracies say (and what citizens hear)
Ending Civil Wars
Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War
Authoritarian State Building and the Sources of Regime Competitiveness in the Fourth Wave
Withering consent, but mutual dependency
Troubled state-building in the DR Congo
Political opportunity structures, democracy, and civil war
Mutiny and nonviolence in the Arab Spring
The Democratic Republic of the Congo? Corruption, Patronage, and Competitive Authoritarianism in the DRC
Democracy, Development, and the International System
Crafting Counterrevolution
The Backlash against Democracy Promotion
The Paradox of "Warlord" Democracy
| Unique citing works | 48 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,86 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 46 |