Trading Peace for Hazard Management? Peace Agreement Implementation and United Nations Peace Operations During Natural Hazards

Although United Nations Peace Operations (UNPOs) can strengthen capacity and improve responses to natural hazards, the core peace operation and ability to produce peace can become victims of crisis management success. Natural hazards can impede UNPOs’ activities and peace accord implementation through three mechanisms: 1) UNPOs activities are diverted to immediate humanitarian assistance, away from core UNPOs’ activities; 2) changes to the bargaining process; and 3) lower opportunity costs of violence and increased opportunities to renege on agreements or call for renegotiations. We compare peace agreement implementation with UNPOs versus peace agreement implementation without UNPOs when facing natural hazards. In an analysis of countries with comprehensive peace agreement implementations between 1992 and 2015 we find that natural hazards during UNPOs deployment see lower subsequent peace agreement implementation relative to hazards in countries without UNPOs. We see these findings as consistent with greater dependency on UNPOs, creating greater tension between responses to natural hazards and peace implementation. Further analysis to unpack the three mechanisms suggests support for the first two mechanisms.