Peacebuilding and the Consolidation of State Authority Evidence from Liberia

1. Peacebuilding and the Consolidation of State AuthorityEvidence from Liberia Robert Blair | Yale University

2. How do governments regain authority in the eyes of civilians after civil war and state collapse? • What role do international institutions play in consolidating state authority? • Focus on United Nations peacebuilding Research questions

3. Devolution of political power from center to periphery and from state to non-state actors • State authority “ceases to be a factor in everyday life” (Hansen and Stepputat 2001) • Political power is up for grabs and “local power-grabbers grab it” (Zartman 1995) • State consolidation reverses this process • Grabbing power back FrameworkPathologies of state collapse

4. Peacebuilders foster institutional development and reform (Doyle and Sambanis) Peacebuilders promote rule of state law (Zuercher 2006) Peacebuilders “crowd out” the state (Rubin 2008) Peacebuilders project “appearance of change” (Barnett and Zuercher 2009) Peacebuilding helps Peacebuilding hinders Peacebuilding and state consolidationHelp or hindrance?

5. Argument • State consolidation requires “building trust in the idea of the state” (Chesterman 2005) • Peacebuildersact as “surrogates” for state authority • El Salvador: UN “acted as the state” (Pouligny 2006) • Haiti: UN “described in terms very similar to those used to describe the state” (Pouligny 2006) • Kosovo: “UNMIKistan” (Higate and Henry 2009) • Liberia: “UNMIL and government, that the same thing” (Gbarngaresident)

6. Argument • As state surrogates, peacebuilders “lend credibility to a newly formed state” (Lake 2010) • “All of our contributions are to be totally attributed to the government. Everything we do, the government is supposed to get the credit” (UNMIL, UNPOL) • “We are like proxies for the government” (UNMIL, Milobs) • At the same time, peacebuilders “subordinate informal or traditional institutions of authority” (Call 2008)

7. Testing the argument • Focus on “most-likely case” • Liberia • Use mixed methods to measure different dimensions of peacebuilding and state authority • 3-wave panel survey • Survey experiments • Lab-in-the-field experiments • In-depth, open-ended qualitative interviews

8. SettingLiberia One of the world’s weakest states Today, most Liberians believe “decisions by traditional leaders should take precedent over formal law” (Siddiqi and Sandefur2009)

9. Panel survey of 242 communities • 3 war-affected counties • 20 randomly selected residents per community • 4 non-randomly selected local leaders • 2009, 2011 and 2013 DataPanel survey

10. Empirical strategy • Measure civilians’ preferences for providers of security • State vs. traditional leaders vs. UNMIL • Focus on criminal cases that fall unambiguously under state jurisdiction • E.g, murder • Estimate effects of peacebuilding on civilians’ preferences for the state over traditional leaders

11. Measuring peacebuilding Mitigating confounders Qualitative interviews with ~30 UNMIL personnel to understand selection process How does UNMIL decide where to intervene? Who does UNMIL interact with during these interventions? • Proxies for three “types” of UN peacebuilding • Patrols • Interventions to resolve impending or ongoing disputes • Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) Empirical strategyIdentification

12. Patrols—large, statistically significant increase in preference for state over traditional authorities • The more frequent the patrols, the larger the effect • Effect persists even once peacebuilders begin to withdraw • No effect on preference for UNMIL • “Our mandate is to observe, mentor and advise. [This finding] provides proof that the mission is somewhat succeeding, and that the method aligns with UNMIL's mandate: to remain in the background, and to be viewed strictly as support” (UNMIL, UNPOL) Summary of results

13. Interventions and QIPs—no effect • Potential explanation? Security over social service provision? Necessity of face-to-face interactions? • “You have to let them know who you are, what you look like. You have to interact with them” (UNMIL, UNPOL) • “We sit with them, eat with them, interact with them, and spend time with them.” Many patrols are spent “just mingling” (UNMIL, Milobs) Summary of results

14. Further results • Lab-in-the-field experiments • Effects of peacebuilding on citizens’ compliance with state authority, even in the absence of incentives, sanctions or “social norms” of compliance • Survey experiments • Effects of peacebuilding on citizens’ support for traditional mechanisms of justice that violate state law (e.g., trial by ordeal)

15. Peacebuilding and state consolidation now “virtually synonymous” with one another (Call 2008) • Debates but scant empirical evidence on the nature of this relationship • Almost none at the sub-national level Contributions

16. Peacebuilders strengthen state authority while weakening the authority of traditional leaders • This effect persists even after peacebuilders begin to withdraw • The strength of the effect depends on the frequency and intensity of contact between civilians and peacebuilders Contributions

17. Limitations and extensions • Are these results specific to UNMIL? • Large, competent, almost universally supported by civilians • Krasno 2006; Blair, Blattman & Hartman 2011 • “The key variable here is the positive perception of the mission in Liberia to start with…. I wonder if you would be getting similar results in Haiti or DRC, even maintaining the same patterns of advocacy in support of government and everything else” (HQ, Civil Affairs)

18. Statebuilding is not merely a matter of public goods provision • In peacebuilding, “branding” matters • UN may be different from other peacebuilders in this respect Lessons for Colombia?

19. Thank yourobert.blair@yale.edu

20. ResultsSurvey

21. Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

22. Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

23. Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

24. Notes: OLS regressions of respondents' preferences on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. Effects are calculated relative to the excluded category of no exposure. All specifications include respondent-level controls, community-level controls and district fixed effects. Standard errors in brackets. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Effects of peacebuildingDisaggregated by frequency of patrols

25. Why no effect on civilians’ preferences for UNMIL? “Sounds just like Haiti where our rating was always lower than the government and [the SRSG] said, ‘Judge us by our support to the government; we don't need to be liked’” (HQ, DPKO) “Our mandate is to observe, mentor and advise…. [This finding] provides proof that the mission is somewhat succeeding, and that the method aligns with UNMIL's mandate: to remain in the background, and to be viewed strictly as support” (UNMIL, UNPOL)

26. ResultsList experiment

27. Measure support for trial by ordeal • Traditional mechanism for adjudicating criminal cases • Prohibited under state law • Widely practiced and supported in rural areas List experimentIntuition

28. List experimentEmpirical strategy “Let say someone bust into your house and took something, and nobody knows who did it. I am going to tell you some different ways people can handle that matter. I want you to tell me how many ways you yourself support. Don’t tell me which ones; just tell me how many.” Call for the police Just leave it alone and do nothing Call the UNMIL people Call for sassywood (trial by ordeal)

29. Notes: Maximum likelihood estimator of respondents' list experiment “type” on exposure to peacebuilding at the community level. All specifications include respondent-level and community-level controls. Standard errors in brackets. Results from list experimentEffects of peacebuilding