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Peacekeeping is widely considered to be an effective means of preventing civil war recurrence. However, as peace has collapsed in a considerable number of cases despite peacekeeping efforts, we are left with the question which combinations of peacekeeping environments and peacekeeping missions lead to lasting peace. This article compares 22 peacekeeping missions between 1990 and 2012. While prominent United Nations documents assume that the success of post-conflict peacekeeping primarily depends on the features of the mission itself, the analysis shows that characteristics of the terminated civil war have a strong influence on whether peace endures. Restrained peacekeeping, defined by low troop density, non-robustness, and a lead nation that is not a permanent member of the Security Council, only succeeds in preserving peace in conducive environments. Inconclusive war endings, evenly distributed military capabilities at war’s end, ethnic conflicts, and high intensity create a particularly difficult context for peacekeeping.

The Central African Republic experienced unprecedented violence between 2012 and 2014. We analyse three recent ruptures that developed as a result of this crisis, suggesting a break with the country's past. First, the Séléka rebellion that started in 2012; second, the establishment of a robust UN Peacekeeping mission in 2014; and finally, the democratic election of a civilian president in 2016. However, three deep-rooted patterns of governance have in each case transformed these ruptures. A history of outsourced politics, a plurality of violence and peripheral neglect push actors to perpetuate the violent past rather than breaking with it. We conclude that after an initial attempt to break with the CAR's long-term political economic trends, rebel groups, the UN mission and the democratic government have backtracked and now risk reinforcing the violence that mark politics and everyday life in the country.

Why do similarly sized peacekeeping missions vary in their effectiveness to protect civilians in conflicts? We argue that peace operations with a large share of troops from countries with high-quality militaries are better able to deter violence from state and non-state actors and create buffer zones within conflict areas, can better reach remote locations, and have superior capabilities - including diplomatic pressure by troop contributing countries - to monitor the implementation of peace agreements. These operational advantages enable them to better protect civilians. Combining data from military expenditures of troop contributing countries together with monthly data on the composition of peace operations, we create a proxy indicator for the average troop quality of UN PKOs. Statistical evidence from an extended sample of conflicts in Africa and Asia between 1991 and 2010 supports our argument.