Recent headlines coming out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have focused on fighting in the east of the country and the fall of the key cities of Goma and Bukavu to the Rwanda-supported M23 rebel group. However, over the past several months, there have been a series of other concerning developments in the country. In particular, the president, Félix Tshisekedi, has called into question the continued relevance of the constitution, suggesting that he may attempt to amend it in order to remove presidential term limits and remain in power. For a country that has struggled to make a transition from the dictatorial era of its long-time president Mobutu Sese Seko to democratic governance and that has a seen the presence of a UN peacekeeping operation since 1999, this turn of events raises an important question: do United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations sometimes contribute to authoritarian forms of governance, despite the UN’s own stated aim of promoting democratization?
In our new book, United Nations Peacekeeping and the Politics of Authoritarianism (Oxford University Press, 2025), we show that while the UN does not intentionally encourage authoritarianism, it faces several constraints and dilemmas that give rise to what we call authoritarian enabling. While enabling stops short of the outright promotion of authoritarianism, it explains why the UN’s actions often appear to contradict its stated objectives and the outcomes it delivers often fall short of its goals. We have identified two types of enabling: first, UN capacity-building of the (often repressive) institutions of the state, and second, weak signals of disapproval when host governments engage in authoritarian behavior.
In our research, we have seen these patterns repeat themselves in missions in different regions of the world and in different time periods. Our book explores these unintended consequences of peacekeeping in four in-depth case studies of UN peacekeeping operations: the UN Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC), the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo / UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC/MONUSCO), the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). We uncover some striking similarities across these diverse cases, and we find that contemporary peacekeeping missions struggle with common challenges of working with, and potentially bolstering, autocratic host governments.
Strengthening the Autocratic State through Capacity-Building
In some cases, peacekeeping operations directly support and enhance the capabilities of host states, which can in turn augment their repressive capacity. One of the core elements of most post-Cold War peacekeeping mandates is the capacity-building of state institutions and security services. MONUC/MONUSCO, MINUSTAH, and UNMIL all had mandates to support and strengthen the institutions of government.
However, they did not extend this support across all government branches equally, prioritizing working with and through the executive instead. DRC, Haiti, and Liberia all feature presidential systems: though different in detail, their constitutions envision a strong president supported by and accountable to a prime minister, a parliament, and local assemblies or councils. However, the UN’s excessive focus on the executive came at the expense of parliaments and local assemblies and thus skewed the power balance in favor of the former, enhancing its ability to engage in authoritarian practices. For example, in DRC, a heavy focus on the executive during the mission’s early days enabled Joseph Kabila, president from 2001-18, to cement his power, and the mission failed to insist on institutional checks and balances that would have held him to account. Similarly, although UNMIL staff showed awareness of the dangers of “presidential autocracy” in Liberia, the mission opted to work primarily with and through President Sirleaf Johnson, who was in power from 2006-18, rather than parliament. In this way, UN peacekeepers’ decisions on which governmental institutions to support and which to deprioritize can affect the domestic power balance and enhance the executive’s capacity for authoritarian practices.
Security sector reform (SSR) efforts also had unintended consequences. SSR centered on police reform in Haiti and Liberia and on reform of the armed forces in DRC. Our analysis reveals several risks stemming from UN peacekeepers’ belated or incomplete efforts to strengthen democratic oversight and accountability mechanisms. First, UNMIL and MINUSTAH failed to insist on delinking politics from policing. This enabled the executive in both states to place loyalists in security institutions, undermining the institutions’ professionalism and legitimacy. Second, for MONUC/MONUSCO, the volatile security situation meant a focus on supplementing the capacity of the Congolese armed forces. However, this freed up resources for President Kabila to use the security forces to intimidate and repress political opponents and civil society, in particular through his Presidential Guard. In all these examples, the UN’s capacity-building efforts in the security sector deprioritized democratic accountability and depoliticization for the sake of maintaining public order in the short term.
Weak Signaling of Disapproval can Support Authoritarian Behavior
Along with support to the core institutions of the state, peacekeeping missions sometimes enable authoritarian rulers by implicitly giving them a greenlight for their political abuses. All four missions in our study had mandates to support or organize elections, but electoral malpractice was a feature of all elections. This ranged from ballot stuffing in Haiti and arresting political opponents in DRC, to attacking opposition rallies in Cambodia and the use of government assets for electioneering in Liberia. In the much-delayed 2018 election in DRC, experts suspected such extensive fraud that they called the vote “a defeat for democracy.” Yet MONUSCO leadership offered only a tepid response and placed little or no pressure on Congolese elites to protect the democratic process.
In Haiti, the elections of both 2006 and 2011 resulted in electoral crises and political instability, as competing political factions mobilized protesters and challenged the results. MINUSTAH contributed to crafting highly irregular solutions to these electoral crises, deviating from established electoral procedures in order to preserve stability. By doing so, it sent a signal that the democratic rules of the game were negotiable and could be set aside in order to keep the peace.
In addition, we found that UN mission officials were often reluctant to speak out publicly against incumbent elites. When faced with non-democratic behavior by national authorities in the run-up to elections or during polling, the four peacekeeping operations often offered no official public response or only mild criticism, frequently blaming all parties equally. Our evidence demonstrates that not naming the main perpetrator(s) clearly, or only doing so privately or quietly, signals to the host state that autocratic practices are low-cost. The cases of DRC and Haiti in particular show a pattern of escalating authoritarian behavior over time, indicating a learning effect emanating from previous instances of UN signaling.
Alongside their electoral-support mandates, the peacekeeping operations analyzed in the book were mandated to help re-establish a secure environment. Despite differing levels of insecurity across the cases, all needed to react to state violence and repression, and the ways in which they did so sent cues to the host government about the permissiveness of such behavior. In Cambodia, the incumbent party used violence against both the opposition and the population in an attempt to tilt the elections in its favor. Despite monitoring and documenting abuses, there was very little follow-up action as the head of mission was hesitant to pressure the incumbent party and potentially lose its cooperation in the organization of elections. Similarly, the persistent use of repression and intimidation against peaceful protesters by the DRC government did not attract explicit, public, or sustained criticism by MONUSCO. Our findings show that these types of timid reactions to political violence or repression sends signals to host governments that it is tacitly tolerated and can be used to cement their power without attracting prohibitive costs.
Three Strategies for Peacekeepers to Avoid Enabling
In situations where policymakers and practitioners face trade-offs and dilemmas that may lead to authoritarian enabling, what can they do to avoid or mitigate it? Some of the causes of enabling are associated with intrinsic features of peacekeeping that may be hard to change, such as the need for host state consent and the challenge of balancing between competing objectives. However, we argue that the UN could do more to reduce the potential for authoritarian enabling. While our recommendations are drawn from our case studies of UN peacekeeping, we believe that they also apply to other bilateral and multilateral peace support initiatives.
First, UN peacekeepers, Country Teams, and their partners should pursue a balanced approach to institutional capacity-building to ensure that executive, legislative, and judicial institutions, as well as central and local governments and assemblies are strengthened and supported equally. Second, police and military reforms should include a three-pronged mitigation strategy from the outset to ensure that security services do not turn into repressive tools in the hands of politicians: police and military appointments, particularly those of senior leaders, should follow strict standards or be undertaken by professional appointment boards limiting executive interference; internal safeguards and oversight should be prioritized to permit the police or military to deal with instances of inappropriate political influence; and external oversight by relevant parliamentary committees, civil society, and the media should be strengthened. Third, peacekeepers should not remain silent in the face of severe norm violations. Mission leaders should articulate clear red lines, speaking out and acting when host country authorities cross them. To ensure the credibility and consistency of such messages, coherence between the mission’s various units, between the mission and other members of the international community, and between the mission’s rhetoric and behavior, along with support from UN HQ, are key. If peacekeepers choose to communicate privately with the host government, this needs to be followed up with public statements.
UN peacekeepers often find themselves in situations where they face dilemmas and trade-offs in their interactions with host state authorities. This will undoubtedly remain the case in the future. However, awareness of the mechanisms of enabling and potential mitigation strategies may help to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of the past.
About the authors
Sarah von Billerbeck is Professor of International Relations at the University of Reading.
Birte Julia Gippert is Reader in International Relations at the University of Liverpool.
Kseniya Oksamytna is Reader in International Politics at City St. Georges, University of London.
Oisín Tansey is Professor of International Politics at King’s College London.
This think-piece is based on the author’s book United Nations Peacekeeping and the Politics of Authoritarianism (Oxford University Press, 2025. For more information on the project, please visit https://democratizationandpeacebuilding.org/.
Photo credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret