Cameron Mailhot

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• Mailhot, C. (2024). How UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements. American Journal of Political Science. doi:10.1111/ajps.12853
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  How do UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements, and what effect do higher rates of enforcement have on agreement implementation and conflict termination? Peace agreement enforcement forms a central component of peacekeeping effectiveness, yet missions are often mandated to enforce a minority of agreement provisions, and they vary across both time and space in the ways in which they do so. I identify the three dimensions along which enforcement operates—the proportion and type of provisions that missions are mandated to enforce, alongside their mandated level of involvement in their implementation—and theorize about their positive effects on agreement implementation and conflict termination. Analyzing the Peacekeeping Enforcement Dataset, an original data set of the enforcement patterns of all UN peacekeeping missions (1989–2015), I find that each dimension of enforcement has, at various time points, a distinct impact on agreement implementation and preventing conflict recidivism.
• Torres-Beltran, A., & Mailhot, C. (2024). The Dynamic Effects of UN SEA Reporting on the Actions of Peacekeeping Contributing Countries. International Studies Quarterly, 68(3). doi:10.1093/isq/sqae095
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  What effect does sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) reporting by the United Nations (UN) have on the actions of peacekeeping missions’ troop and police contributing countries (TPCCs)? While past scholarship has studied the effect of naming and shaming for states’ human rights records, we examine the relationship between the UN’s reporting on human rights abuses committed by its Member States’ personnel and their policy and personnel responses. Focusing on SEA reporting within peacekeeping missions, we theorize the ways in which the UN’s reporting of SEA may lead to two distinct responses: TPCCs may issue legal frameworks to demonstrate compliance and address SEA, or they may withdraw from peacekeeping missions by reducing their personnel commitments. Using an original, cross-national dataset of UN reporting on SEA allegations and the patterns of framework issuance and personnel commitments among TPCCs (2010–2020), we find that TPCCs with SEA reports are more likely to issue legal frameworks and to reduce personnel contributions than their nonreported counterparts, and that this relationship is particularly strong following the first instance of reporting. With targeted TPCCs demonstrating both greater policy compliance and personnel withdrawal, our findings highlight the dynamic impact that UN reporting for SEA can have on the actions of TPCCs.
• Mailhot, C., Kriner, M., & Karim, S. (2022). International involvement in (re-)building police forces: a comparison of US and UN police assistance programs around the world. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 33(4-5). doi:10.1080/09592318.2022.2041367
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  The US and UN are two of the largest patrons of police reform programs worldwide: between 2000 and 2020, the US provided approximately $160 billion in police assistance to more than 130 countries worldwide; simultaneously, the UN spent over $77 billion supplying police-oriented security sector reform to countries experiencing or having experienced armed conflict, doing so through the deployment of peacekeeping missions and within the offices of UN Police, the UN’s hub for police reform and training programs. Though these two providers seek the same overall objective, they often vary in their specific goals: the US often engages in foreign police reform to promote its own national security objectives by increasing institutional capacity, while the UN adopts police reform programs to promote institutional constraint. The two models have important implications for how we understand bilateral and multilateral reform programs, including activities performed and recipient countries targeted across both time and space. Using originally collected data on US security assistance programs as well as a careful analysis of original data on UN mandates, this article provides the first quantitative exploration of these two different modes of assistance, comparing and contrasting their objectives and where, when, and how they are provided.