The European Union's role in United Nations peacekeeping operations

Abstract

The European Union (EU) repeatedly expresses its support to principles and values of the United Nations (UN), seeing the UN as the core of a rules-based global order. How does the EU perform in contributing personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, and what factors affect their personnel commitments? Recent work shows that the size of the deployed personnel matters for peacekeeping effectiveness, and personnel commitment is a crucial effort by the UN member states to prolong peace. This article's contribution is to conduct the first analysis on the EU member states' contribution rates on 53 UN peacekeeping operations throughout the last 30 years. By testing arguments of two general explanations for factors that affect peacekeeper contributions, the empirical findings reveal that although the EU members tend to contribute less to UN peacekeeping operations, they contribute significantly higher in the case of rising peacekeeper fatalities. However, the EU member states are less likely to contribute with humanitarian impulse or international security threat concerns. The findings suggest that no single theory can explain the contribution motives; instead, a wide range of interacting factors determine the decision to commit personnel to an operation.