Description
The UN is frequently at the forefront of conflict management and resolution in countries wrecked by internal conflict. These efforts are often marred by so-called spoilers. Given the UN's general emphasis on the peaceful resolution of conflict, and its limited possibilities for enforcement, they are in a peculiar position when it comes to devising strategies on how to deal with them. In this paper, I build on existing literature to develop an overview of potential strategies that the UN and other conflict management actors have towards spoilers. I then propose a theoretical framework that sets out conditions that can explain which strategy the UN chooses within the constraints that it operates in. Finally, I test this framework with a comparative case study approach. Although the concept of 'spoilers' has lost some traction in peace studies, I argue in this paper that it is still a relevant analytical category to better understand the UN's conflict management efforts.
