This chapter analyses the increasing trend of African post-conflict states contributing troops to multilateral peace operations. In particular, it focuses on the case studies of Burundi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The authors argue that troop contribution can become a shortcut to reforming, restructuring as well as unifying post-conflict armies through international assistance and training linked to peace operations. This saves budget-constraint post-conflict governments from investing significant funds to the project of building a functional and professional army. In addition, for post-conflict states, which may have remaining domestic issues, sending troops abroad may ease tensions at home and thus facilitate governing. The authors also look into the identity dimension of post-conflict states who contribute troops to peace operations. The decision to contribute troops can assist states to transform their identities from that of post-conflict states to peacekeeping states. Such a transformation can have important consequences on relations with both internal actors and international partners.

Chapter 5 deals with the provision of security in areas of limited statehood. We contest the notion that areas of limited statehood are mostly violent places where civil war prevails. We analyze peacekeeping missions, military interventions from the outside, as well as externally promoted security sector reform. We find that more limited external governance fostering inclusive post-conflict peace-building and security sector reform is more effective than comprehensive state-building efforts. We then look at the conditions under which violent non-state actors can provide public security in the territory that they control. Warlord governance tends to be rather ineffective. Rebel groups score better, particularly when they face high legitimacy needs and local communities with strong trust-based action capacity to hold them accountable. The chapter also looks at tribal groups and leaders as rather effective peace-keepers. They normally lack military enforcement capacity, but can rely on strong social norms to maintain security in communities. While “security under anarchy” is possible in areas of limited statehood, our findings cast serious doubts on whether public security governance can be sustainable in the long run, if a (state) monopoly of the use of force is not restored at some point.

The rule of law is indispensable for sustained peace, good governance, and economic growth, especially in countries recovering from civil war. Yet for all its importance, the rule of law has received surprisingly little attention from political scientists and international relations scholars. This book proposes a new theory to explain how international organizations can restore the rule of law in the world’s weakest and most war-torn states, focusing in particular on the crucial but underappreciated role of the UN. The book tests the theory by combining analysis of original, highly disaggregated survey data from Liberia with cross-country analyses spanning all post-conflict countries in Africa since 1989. The book combines these quantitative results with qualitative insights gleaned from hundreds of interviews with UN officials, local leaders, citizens, and government and civil society representatives in Liberia and beyond. The book shows that UN intervention can have a deeper, more lasting, and more positive effect on the rule of law than the prevailing pessimism would lead us to believe.

The rule of law is a necessary condition for sustained peace, good governance, and economic growth. Yet for all its importance as a policy goal, the rule of law as a concept remains widely misunderstood. This chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the necessary conditions for the rule of law in countries where the state is just one of many providers of security, justice, and other public goods. The chapter begins by reviewing the most prominent definitions of the rule of law from both policy and scholarly circles. These definitions are grounded in the experiences of rich Western countries, and are generally inappropriate for the developing world, and for post-conflict settings in particular. The chapter then proposes a more unified definition that preserves the attractive features of existing accounts while introducing additional dimensions that better capture the nuances of legality and daily life in countries recovering from civil war.

As UN missions have grown in scope and complexity, restoring the rule of law has become increasingly central to their mandates and exit strategies, which hinge on the transfer of legal and political power to legitimate, effective security and justice institutions. UN missions now regularly assume responsibility for drafting laws and lobbying for their passage; revising constitutions; training judges, prosecutors, and police officers; building courthouses, police stations, and prisons; monitoring extrajudicial punishments, arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions, and other abuses; assisting with criminal investigations and prosecutions; improving coordination both between and among state and non-state authorities; and more generally elevating the role of the state as a purveyor of security and justice. All of these activities are designed in part to foster the rule of law. This chapter traces how the rule of law became so central to UN mandates around the world, providing empirical examples along the way to illuminate the UN's approach to rule-of-law reform in practice.

Can the international community help establish the rule of law in countries recovering from civil war? If so, how? This chapter develops a theory to explain how third parties like the UN can help rehabilitate state security and justice sector institutions at the national level, while simultaneously legitimizing those institutions in the eyes of citizens at the local level. The chapter provides illustrations of the theory at work, gleaned from the secondary literature and primary accounts of the successes and shortcomings of UN missions around the world. The UN is especially adept at combining carrots and sticks to encourage compliance with new rule of law standards, even in countries where the rule of law has never existed before. The theory stands in stark contrast to the overly pessimistic accounts that tend to dominate scholarly and policy debate.

The UN is intimately involved in efforts to restore the rule of law in countries recovering from civil war. Have these efforts succeeded? This chapter provides a systematic, cross-national quantitative test of the relationship between UN missions and the rule of law across all post-conflict countries in Africa since the end of the Cold War. The chapter draws on original datasets gleaned from sources that have never been used for purposes of research. The chapter demonstrates a strong positive correlation between UN presence and the rule of law in the one- to three-year period after a peace agreement has been signed. The relationship is stronger for the UN's civilian personnel than for troops and military observers, and is stronger when the UN engages host government officials in the process of reform, rather than bypassing them entirely.

Rule-of-law trajectories diverge widely in countries recovering from civil war. Intervention by the UN and other international intermediaries can help explain this variation both across countries and over time. This concluding chapter summarizes the theory and evidence presented over the course of the book, considers the generalizability of the argument to other settings and other types of international intervention, and generates practical recommendations for UN missions in the field. UN missions should invest more heavily in their civilian components, especially as the scope of their mandates continues to expand; should be proactive in their efforts to legitimize state institutions in the eyes of civilians; and should be aware of the impact that even apparently routine actions can have not just on citizens' support for the mission, but also on their receptiveness to renewed state rule.

Beyond rehabilitating state institutions at the national level, UN missions also attempt to legitimize the role those institutions will ultimately play as purveyors of security and justice in the eyes of citizens at the local level. How successful is the UN's approach to restoring relations between citizens and weak and war-torn states? This chapter begins to answer this question through an in-depth, mixed methods case study of Liberia. The chapter traces the trajectory of the rule of law in Liberia from the country's founding to the present, focusing in particular on the ongoing contest between the police and courts on the one hand and chiefs, elders, and other local leaders on the other. This contest continued to evolve during fourteen years of civil war, which culminated in the deployment of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in 2003. UNMIL faced daunting challenges to the rule of law at the start of its mandate, and adopted a variety of strategies to overcome them. The chapter draws on a combination of secondary sources and original primary interviews conducted with dozens of Liberian citizens and local leaders, as well as with government and UN personnel.