Puppet on a String? UN Conflict Management Efforts in International Crises, 1945-2002.

This paper examines what determines where, when, and how extensively the UN involves itself in international conflicts. Special emphasis is placed on the relative importance of two sets of factors that are widely seen as the primary motivators of UN intervention efforts: 1) the interests of the five veto-holding members of the UN Security Council (the so-called P-5) and 2) the extent to which a conflict poses a threat to international peace and security. We argue that although P-5 interests play a key role in determining whether and with what level of commitment the UN intervenes, many of the measures that are commonly used to capture P-5 interests are theoretically flawed and therefore poor predictors of patterns of UN involvement. Using data on UN conflict management efforts in international crises covering the time period 1945-2002 and statistical techniques that allow for a formal comparison of the relative explanatory power of competing causal models, we also show, however, that even when a more refined model of P-5 preferences is used, measures of conflict severity and escalatory potential constitute a more powerful predictor of UN intervention decisions than a model built around the parochial interests of P-5 members. This suggests that the UN adheres more closely to its organizational mission of promoting international peace and security than the stereotypical view of the organization as nothing but a front for the advancement of parochial great power interests would suggest. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]