How United Nations peace operations can help overcome perils to post-conflict elections

Agreeing to elections is generally seen as a key way to settle armed conflict and prevent recurrent violence. However, the transition from violent conflict to nonviolent electoral competition can be wrought with many challenges. Stable electoral competition requires trust in institutions, but trust often takes a long time to develop and is often lacking in post-conflict elections. We argue that UN peacebuilding operations can play an indispensable role in the development of stable electoral institutions through three interrelated ways: reducing political and electoral violence, supporting democratic attitudes and norms of peaceful coexistence, and reinforcing institutional capacity and the rule of law. Using a new measure of the expected quality of elections in post-conflict countries between 1946 and 2012, we show that UN peace missions are associated with better elections and a greater likelihood of successful transitions to electoral competition compared to post-conflict countries without UN involvement. We also find larger differences when the UN is involved in establishing electoral institutions, especially when there is no or limited prior electoral competition, indicating that the UN is effective at assisting the democratization processes in difficult contexts.