UN Peacekeeping, Militarization, and Women’s Empowerment

Militarization permeates both formal and informal institutions, often reinforcing gender hierarchies and diverting resources away from sectors such as education and health that disproportionately benefit women and girls. As a result, female empowerment tends to decline under militarized conditions—especially in states experiencing civil war. We argue that United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs) can counter these effects by directly improving female empowerment indicators and fostering post-conflict demilitarization, thereby creating potential virtuous cycles of empowerment. Using a series of empirical tests, including difference-in-differences estimations and mediation analyses, we examine the impact of PKOs on conflict-affected states. Our findings indicate that the presence of PKOs is positively associated with increased levels of female empowerment, across multiple operationalizations of conflict and post-conflict militarization. Moreover, PKOs appear to promote empowerment both directly and indirectly by reducing state military expenditures.