Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping,1990

Abstract

Despite evidence that United Nations peacekeeping is a cost-effective tool for addressing civil and interstate conflict, it has consistently experienced financial shortfalls as member states neglect to pay their dues. To enable investigation into the dynamics of peacekeeping support, we present newly collected data on all member-state financial contributions to all UN peacekeeping operations from 1990 to 2010. The data also include dues assessed by the UN to gauge the extent to which states fall short of what they owe. We show that financial shortfalls are widespread and vary across both missions and contributors. The data offer opportunities to understand patterns of financial support for peacekeeping across states, missions, and time, and can ultimately provide insight into the factors that lead states to support international institutions and public goods. We illustrate how scholars can use the data with an analysis of the factors that drive states to meet their financial commitments. We find that wealthier states, those more engaged in global trade, democracies, and those that also contribute personnel to peacekeeping operations are the most likely to pay their dues. Conversely, the United States and countries in the Americas, Africa, and Asia are more likely to shirk part or all of their financial obligations in a given year.

Keywords

United Nations Peacekeeping International Organizations Financial commitments Dataset

Introduction

Research increasingly finds that UN peacekeeping is an effective tool for conflict management and resolution, and that it is a cost-effective way for countries to address global insecurity (Howard, 2017; Hultman et al., 2019).¹ Despite this, the UN has difficulty financing its peacekeeping operations (PKOs), as member-states often pay too little or none of the amount assessed to them. In 2018, contributions fell short of the amount owed by 29.5% (Beagle, 2019). The following year, Secretary-General Guterres sent a letter to contributors warning that the $2 billion overall shortfall to peacekeeping threatened the viability of missions around the world (Goldberg, 2019).

Given the benefits of peacekeeping to the international community, it is puzzling why it is persistently under-funded. To explore this puzzle and other questions, we introduce a new dataset that captures member-state financial contributions to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations from 1990 to 2010. We include the annual amounts that each country pays to peacekeeping, as well as the amount assessed to each country through the UN's scale of assessment. The data are available at the contributor-state level, which provides an opportunity for scholars to explore when and how states meet their financial commitments to UN peacekeeping. Not only might this help inform us of the conditions under which states support peacekeeping, but it also can tell us about the circumstances under which states support international institutions more broadly. The data are also available at the mission level, which allows scholars to investigate which peacekeeping missions are better supported, and to determine how the financing of missions influences their success.

To illustrate a use of the data, we offer analyses of the conditions under which states meet their financial commitments to UN peacekeeping. The paper reveals that on the whole, UN members do not meet their financial commitments to peacekeeping. Not all missions are affected equally, and financial shortfalls are more acute in some missions than others. The United States appears to regularly shirk its financial commitments, and states in Africa, Asia, and the Americas are also less likely to meet their obligations than states in Europe and Oceania. The data presented here can be used in future research to uncover more findings about what leads states to shirk their financial obligations.

The paper also reveals some promising dynamics in the funding of peacekeeping. While peacekeeping expenses have quite dramatically increased, contributions have largely kept pace, indicating that contributing countries are not dissuaded by the increasing cost of peacekeeping. We find that countries with the greatest financial burden are generally not those most likely to shirk their payment responsibility, indicating that the system of burden sharing is generally satisfactory for the largest contributors. The analyses further reveal that wealthier countries and those more dependent on global trade are more likely to meet their financial obligations to peacekeeping. Strong democracies are also more likely to fulfill their financial commitments. Finally, countries that commit uniformed personnel to serve as peacekeepers also tend to meet their financial obligations.

The paper begins by outlining the history and structure of peacekeeping financing to better understand the data. Next, we consider the importance of studying financial support for peacekeeping. We then introduce the data, explain our coding methods, and offer some statistics and trends that emerge from the data. Lastly, we provide preliminary analyses that assess the factors that make states more or less likely to meet their financial obligations in a given year. We conclude that the dataset will provide opportunities to better understand behavior in burden sharing at the international level, the factors that drive states to support such efforts, and the implications of peacekeeping resource allocation for effective conflict mitigation.

Brief historical background on financing UN operations

A historical review of peacekeeping reveals that the UN has frequently faced difficulty in funding its missions. Early operations were funded from the UN's regular budget, but when conflicts erupted over Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, and the civil war in the Congo followed in 1960, it became apparent that peacekeeping required greater resources than the regular budget could provide. With the establishment of UNEF I in Egypt and ONUC in the Congo, new rules were introduced that required member states to foot the bill for peacekeeping, with costs assessed to each country according to the existing general UN budget scale. Yet the missions’ expenses quickly outpaced member-states’ ability or desire to pay their share: UNEF I cost a total of $214 million while ONUC's expenses exceeded $400 million in the four years that it existed (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2019). As a result, UNEF received around 75% of its assessed costs from 20 out of 117 member-states, while ONUC received only around 70% from 40 contributors (Sheehan, 2011: 57–60). The General Assembly found itself unwilling to punish countries for not paying, despite provisions to do so in Article 19 of the UN Charter. Its failure to invoke this article against the Soviet Union for its repeated failure to pay indicated that countries would probably not be held accountable for shirking their responsibilities (Mir, 2019: 4). The UN subsequently found itself in a financial crisis, with little possibility of continuing a viable program of peacekeeping.

This, among other reasons such as Cold War dynamics and lessons learned from the heavy enforcement intervention in the Congo, limited peacekeeping in the following decades. What did occur during this period of relative quiet was the reform of the peacekeeping funding system. General Assembly Resolution 3101 in 1973 reinforced the intention for member-states to pay for operations, but introduced a system of payment levels where each country was placed in one of four groups according to its share of global income. The methodology builds on the same assessment system for member countries to pay into the regular UN budget, but it gives additional adjustments to some countries for their share of the peacekeeping budget. This system was revised slightly in 2000 to create a more equitable system, and that system remains in place today. Figure 1 displays the distribution of countries in each assessment level as of 2001, the first year of implementation of the latest funding model.² The vast majority of countries are placed in levels I and J, receiving heavily discounted assessment rates. The United States holds the largest assessment at 28% of the overall peacekeeping budget, followed by China, Japan, Germany, and the UK. The permanent five members of the Security Council pay a larger share of the peacekeeping budget than they do the regular UN budget, to make up for the discounts and adjustments that other UN members are given under the peacekeeping budget. To summarize: the system of financing is such that a few countries pay the largest amounts, but every UN member is assessed for making a financial contribution to peacekeeping.

Figure 1.

Number of countries in each level of financial assessment for UN peacekeeping, 2001.

Why study financial support for UN peacekeeping?

Research has revealed that UN peacekeeping is an effective tool for fostering international security.³ It is a fairly inexpensive tool of security, especially when comparing the cost of peacekeeping with countries’ overall military spending.⁴ It is also arguably a more cost-effective way for major powers to promote security than pursuing the same initiatives unilaterally.⁵ Despite these benefits, peacekeeping is persistently under-funded, and members often make late payments or fail to make payments altogether (Mir, 2019). The contrast between the effectiveness and the underfinancing of peacekeeping makes it interesting to explore why, when, and how countries choose to give it financial support. Moreover, the financing of peacekeeping is important from a policy perspective. If peacekeeping financing is a problem, as Secretary-General Guterres has warned, it is important to understand if and how under-resourcing threatens mission effectiveness. Below, we speculate as to how financing influences the effectiveness of peacekeeping and offer some ways in which the data presented here can provide insight.

One connection between financing and peacekeeping effectiveness hinges on the fact that if financial resources are not available, troop- and equipment-contributing countries are not reimbursed. This may lead to a number of problems. The UN may find it difficult to achieve mandated personnel deployment levels, as member-states hesitate to contribute or withdraw their unpaid contingents. The result is slow, reduced, or no personnel deployment from contributors. Canada and other contributor countries, for instance, have remarked that “late reimbursements to troop- and police-contributing countries are impeding troop rotations and the willingness of States to contribute to provide personnel” (United Nations General Assembly, 2019). In the last two decades, the vast majority of peacekeepers have come from developing countries, where income for peacekeepers and a revenue stream for the government may be a central enticement (Bellamy and Williams, 2013). Further, a recent study by Lundgren et al., (2021) finds that countries more dependent on peacekeeping reimbursements deploy personnel more quickly. The implication is that such countries will be disincentivized from contributing personnel if they are not reimbursed in a timely manner. While developed countries contributing in previous decades could absorb delayed reimbursement, many developing countries cannot. Regular contributors such as Fiji and Rwanda have decried the failure to reimburse for personnel, arguing that their continued participation depends on reform of the reimbursement process. Rwanda even recently withheld a deployment from MINUSCA in the Central African Republic owing to unpaid reimbursements, complicating an already difficult operation (Williams, 2018).

If missions suffer from reduced personnel deployments, their effectiveness may degrade. Personnel shortfalls, like financial shortfalls, are a perennial problem for UN peacekeeping (Passmore et al., 2018), and are consistently linked with reports of weakened peacekeeping effectiveness. Relatedly, research shows that increasing personnel deployments are more effective at stopping violence (Hultman et al., 2013, 2014, 2019). Reduced, slow, or lacking personnel deployments signal that a mission is weak, and that the international community is uncommitted. This may embolden domestic actors to resume and even increase the use of violence. Indirectly, resource shortages also have implications for others involved in the peacekeeping effort. If peacekeeping is not delivered effectively, externalities such as the creation of refugees, weakened economies, and humanitarian crises place an extra burden on non-government organizations working within the conflict zone, as well as countries that are exposed to the overflow of such effects (Sheehan, 2011: 141).

Even if countries continue to contribute personnel and equipment despite delays in being reimbursed, the peacekeepers that are deployed are less likely to deliver effective peacekeeping. The backlog of payments often means that governments of poorer countries cannot update equipment, and peacekeepers are sent into the field with inadequate resources, putting them at risk and reducing their effectiveness. A UN report responding to an increasing trend of fatalities among peacekeepers highlights the need for more sophisticated equipment, which requires increased financial support (Gladstone, 2018). Major cash shortages can lead to reduced purchasing of material and equipment (Sheehan, 2011: 141). In addition, if a government cannot foot the bill in the UN's absence, deployed peacekeepers can become dissatisfied, which can result in a backlash for the sending government in the form of a mutiny (Dwyer, 2015). Peacekeepers may also seek out their own means of acquiring resources, drawing them to illicit economies in the countries in which they are serving (Andreas, 2008). Lack of financial resources may therefore threaten the ability of peacekeeping operations to carry out their mandates.

To investigate these and other implications of delayed or withheld financial support for peacekeeping, we have gathered data that captures state commitments and payments to UN peacekeeping. We envision two broad applications of the data. First, scholars can study what compels countries to financially support peacekeeping. Although contributions can take many forms, the availability of reliable and systematic data has meant that most studies of peacekeeping focus on the provision of peacekeeping personnel (Bellamy and Williams, 2013; Bove and Elia, 2011; Kathman and Melin, 2017; Passmore, 2020; Perkins and Neumayer, 2008; Victor, 2010), rather than financial contributions.⁶ Existing research lacks an understanding of the specific and varying incentives of states to contribute financially to peacekeeping. Such an inquiry is enabled by the data presented here.

Second, scholars can explore what determines financial support for particular missions, as well as the effect of financing on peacekeeping outcomes (mission-level analyses). Since not all conflicts receive peacekeeping, and those that do are not chosen at random, there are factors specific to the conflict or country that determine the deployment of peacekeepers (Gilligan and Stedman, 2003; Mullenbach, 2005; Fortna, 2008; Beardsley and Schmidt, 2012). While some research explores the factors that compel countries to contribute personnel to certain missions, little is known about why countries choose to financially support particular missions.⁷ Moreover, researchers can use the data to determine the influence of financing (or lack thereof) on missions' ability to meet their mandates and reduce violence, among other outcomes.

The dataset offers an opportunity to significantly expand the peacekeeping research agenda by identifying patterns in financial contributions to specific PKOs, both by individual contributor-countries and at the mission level. The data collected here go beyond previous studies to present data on contributions from all UN member states over a broader time period. Moreover, the data gather financial contributions relative to assessed rates to identify where shortfalls exist at the contributor and mission levels. Although states outside of the top tiers give relatively very little, their contributions offer important insights not only for understanding shortfalls in peacekeeping, but also for understanding how such states play a role in global public goods provision. A broader dataset allows one to identify contagion effects of major contributor payments and shortfalls on the smaller contributors. These data have the potential to paint a more complete picture of peacekeeping contribution behavior.

Introducing the UN peacekeeping financial contributions dataset

The new dataset captures member-state financial contributions to all active UN peacekeeping operations from 1990 to 2010.⁸ The data include the amounts actually paid by each country to a mission, as well as the payment amount assessed to that country through the UN's scale of assessment payment system. We are thus able to calculate various types of financial shortfall, including the arrears by each contributor-country, and the total financial shortfall (sum of all country-contributor arrears) for each mission.

Contribution data were gathered from UN General Assembly Status of Contributions reports published from 1990 to 2010.⁹ Operations are assigned a specific budget account where states are assessed by their individual payments based on the annual budget for that mission. In some instances, follow-on missions addressing the same conflict are combined in the same budget account, such as the four operations in Angola (UNAVEM I, II, III and MONUA). Therefore, while the data cover 42 separate operations, they are grouped into 38 budget accounts.

The UN's financial reports include each open account for peacekeeping missions and the respective financial details for each member-state. Although reports often differ in content from one another, they all have five components: (1) contributions payable at the beginning of the year (i.e. arrears from previous years); (2) the total assessed to that country for the mission in the current year; (3) the amount contributed by the state; (4) any credits or adjustments made to the balance (typically a credit for a previous contribution not fully used by the mission); and (5) the outstanding balance at the end of the year. The last figure is what we refer to as the “shortfall,” consisting of the total unpaid arrears and current assessment that year. A country's contribution in any given year is first applied to outstanding arrears, and the remainder to the current assessment. Therefore, a country not settling the full sum of arrears and current assessment will show a shortfall, even if the contribution was greater than the assessment for that year alone.

Importantly, the UN peacekeeping budget transitioned in 1996 from a calendar year to a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30. However, end-of-year financial reports were still produced on the calendar year to coincide with the UN General Budget, offering no clear financial picture of peacekeeping balances on June 30 of each year. Relying only on calendar year reports gives an incomplete picture of payments, because countries paying their balance between January and June show up as being in arrears in the December report. Moreover, many missions receive new assessments midway through the year as mandates are renewed and budgets are modified. Where this happens between January and June, the December report does not offer an accurate assessment total for contributors. We rectify this problem by taking reports issued in June of each year that give a mid-year balance of contributions (assessments and contributions from January to June). Since these reports do not give a total for the budget year (July to June), we calculate this by reconciling January–June data with January–December data to create figures for July–December. These can subsequently be added to January–June data for the following year to create a July–June total. The final dataset also includes calendar year totals. Therefore, each contributor-mission-year after 1996 has two observations: one for the calendar year and one for the budget year. The resulting dataset includes 77,261 contributor-mission-year observations. If considering only observations that coincide with the peacekeeping budget year, there are 42,597 observations. The data cover 42 UN peacekeeping operations split into 38 different budget accounts and with assessments and contributions for all UN member states. Although the data cover all years between 1990 and 2010, the UN stopped issuing reports after December 2010.¹⁰ This means that we cannot calculate July–June figures for the 2009–2010 budget year. Calendar year observations therefore run from 1990 to 2010, and budget year observations from 1990 to 2009.

We limit the data to active missions only. Mission accounts are typically not closed upon cessation of the mission, giving an opportunity to states with arrears to reduce their balances over time. However, once the mission has ceased operation, no new assessments are issued. We chose to omit these mission-years for several reasons. First, while identifying late payments made to a mission after it has ended may offer some interesting information, we expect it is of less interest than contributions while a mission is operational. Second, payments made after a mission ends are rare, offering little additional data to use. Third, including these observations with no assessment or ending balance would inflate the number of zero balances where states have paid off what they owe and maintain no arrears thereafter, giving an inaccurate perception of payment behavior.

In what follows, we offer some description of the data and trends that emerge to explain where financial shortfalls are most prevalent. We begin by looking at all missions and contributors combined, and subsequently assess trends within each of these two categories.

Statistics and trends in financial support for peacekeeping

Here we offer some statistics and analyses of the data to identify some key trends and illustrate the various potential uses of the data. Table 1 offers some descriptive statistics of the data. A significant range is observed for each measure, indicating the unequal distribution of the peacekeeping burden. While the median assessment over the time period is $2,582, the maximum observed assessment exceeds $980 million (the United States’ assessment for UNAMID in 2009). The median contribution is significantly lower at $455 million, a mere fifth of what is owed that year, while the median ending balance exceeds $1000 million. The largest observed end-of-year shortfall of $586 million reflects the United States’ mounting arrears to UNPROFOR in 1996.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of contributor-mission-year data, financial contributions in millions to United Nations Peacekeeping 1990–2010.

Variable	Observations	Median ($)	Maximum value ($)
Assessed	77,261	2582	980,098,752
Contributed	77,261	455	921,568,256
Adjustments and credits	77,261	47	62,949,904
Year-end financial shortfall	77,261	1006	585,913,407

Figure 2 shows the total contributions of all states annually compared with the total peacekeeping balance, composed of the sum of arrears from the previous year and new assessments. The figure indicates that while the peacekeeping budget has fluctuated over time, it exhibited a steady increase after 2003. Despite this increased burden placed on states, total payments have generally tracked closely with the total owed, leaving relatively small total shortfalls each year. The gap between the two bars for each year does not vary greatly from year to year, although it does show a small increase in the final two years, indicating some difficulty for the international community in meeting the increasing financial demands of peacekeeping.

Figure 2.

Annual amounts owed and paid by contributors to UN peacekeeping.

Recall that the peacekeeping budget is not equally distributed among missions, and that contributor-countries are sent separate bills for each mission. This means that when contributors fail to meet their financial commitments, the shortfall may not affect all missions equally. In fact, contributors may strategically choose not to meet their commitments to particular missions. Investigating payment patterns across missions would therefore reveal interesting information about the strategic nature of peacekeeping contributions, future work made possible by this dataset. For now, we illustrate the prevalence of financial shortfalls by UN peacekeeping mission in Figure 3, showing the average percentage of assessments paid by member-states to each mission over its active years. Whereas missions towards the left saw the weakest commitment from the international community, those further right were the best supported. Sixteen missions received on average less than half of the assessed amount from members in a given year, while eight received at least two-thirds of the assessed amount. The variation observed across missions indicates that all missions do not receive the same support, ranging from an average contribution of 23% (UNSMIH) to 72% (UNMEE).

Figure 3.

Total paid as a percentage of total assessed, averaged across all contributors and years of a UN peacekeeping mission.

In addition to variation across missions, there is variation within missions over time. Figure 4 illustrates this variation in the case of the UN interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), where international commitment gradually increased over time, although it still experienced fluctuations from year to year.¹¹ Its highest average rate of payment by member-states was in 2007, when contributing states paid just over 70% of their assessed amount on average. Therefore, while missions experience differing contribution rates from one another, they also exhibit varying contributions within their individual lifespans. This reflects the utility of these data for understanding how international commitments to missions vary according to conditions in a given year.

Figure 4.

Proportion of funds assessed that were paid to the UN interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

In addition to mission-level trends, the data reveal trends in contributions among member states (this is addressed more thoroughly in the statistical analyses). Figure 5 shows the countries with the largest average arrears to UN peacekeeping from 1990 to 2010, calculated as the total owed to all missions combined in a given year, then averaged across all years in the data. Notably, many of the countries shown bear a heavier assessment burden. Regardless, the net arrears generated by such countries have an important effect on the overall health of peacekeeping activities. The United States stands alone in its debt to peacekeeping, with an average annual debt of $323 million. All five permanent members of the Security Council appear in the top 11 debtors.

Figure 5.

Member states with the highest average net arrears to UN peacekeeping, 1990–2010.¹².

Figure 6 shows in greater detail the contribution activity of the top 10 countries by assessment: the permanent five members of the UN Security Council (P5) along with Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. The graph displays the annual average annual contribution of each country as a percentage of the amount it was assessed. Higher values reflect a member-state paying more of what it owes in that year. The graph shows that three countries – Canada, the UK, and Germany – largely paid what they owed and did so relatively consistently (France and Italy show a similar behavior but to a slightly lesser extent). In no year did any of these three countries pay less than 80% of what they were assessed. The same is true for Russia after 1995, before which it was responsible for the highest annual shortfalls of all listed countries. Spain, China, and Japan display great variation in their shortfalls over the years, ranging from payments as high as 100% and as low as 31%. The United States’ contribution pattern has similarly shown variation, although unlike the others it has consistently underpaid, with average contributions never rising above 80%.

Figure 6.

Average of contributions as a proportion of funds owed (arrears plus assessments) for the top 10 contributing countries, 1990 – 2010.

Finally, the data indicate that states’ contributions often vary across missions. There are states that systematically pay their dues regardless of the mission (such as Australia, Canada, and Finland) and those that repeatedly fail to pay (such as the Central African Republic, Comoros, and Guinea–Bissau). However, many states exhibit variation in their support for individual missions. Figure 7 shows the fluctuation in payments across missions made by Brazil. Brazil is a middle power with a long history of peacekeeping involvement and geographical distance from most post-Cold War peacekeeping operations. We might therefore expect Brazil's financial contributions to be relatively consistent across missions, unaffected by geopolitical interests. However, the figure indicates significant variation in commitments across missions, ranging from an annual average of zero for five missions to 92% for UNAMID. Since the missions are ordered by start date, this variation does not appear to be a result of shifting financial priorities over time. This further indicates that for at least some countries, the decision to support peacekeeping operations is made at the mission level, rather than simply dividing a lump sum among missions according to their assessment. The data can therefore be used to understand what motivates states to contribute to some missions more than others.

Figure 7.

Average of contributions as a proportion of funds owed (arrears plus assessments) to all missions by Brazil between1990 and 2010.¹³.

The above figures and discussion give some indication of the variation in peacekeeping finance behavior across contributors, missions, and time. In the following section, we offer preliminary statistical analyses to further identify inferences made possible by the data.

Preliminary analysis of states’ financial contributions to peacekeeping

To illustrate the use of the data in understanding peacekeeping activities, we offer some preliminary analyses to show one way in which the data might be used. While the data may be employed to understand mission-level factors, or dyadic factors relating to contributors and missions, we look here at the determinants of states’ annual peacekeeping contributions as a whole. A growing body of literature investigates the determinants of countries’ contributions of personnel to UN peacekeeping (Andersson, 2002; Lebovic, 2004; Perkins and Neumayer, 2008; Victor, 2010; Kathman and Melin, 2017; Passmore, 2020), while a more limited series of studies has considered states’ annual contributions to peacekeeping (Bobrow and Boyer, 1997; Shimizu and Sandler, 2002; Gaibulloev et al., 2009). The following analyses follow this vein, considering overall annual contributions of finances as a tool of states’ foreign policies.

We use as the dependent variable a state's total contribution to all peacekeeping missions in a year as a proportion of the amount it owes to all peacekeeping missions, consisting of its arrears at the beginning of the year combined with its assessments throughout the year. The resulting variable ranges from 0 to 1, with a mean value of 0.29, meaning that the average state in a given year pays 29% of the total amount it owes.

The covariates reflect either a state's desire or capacity to contribute financially and include variables previously used in studies of state resource contributions to peacekeeping (Perkins and Neumayer, 2008; Gaibulloev et al., 2009; Bove and Elia, 2011). We use three economic indicators: the natural log of a state's gross domestic product (GDP), Economic Openness, and Military Expenditure. While the scale of assessments places a heavier burden on wealthier countries, it is unclear if this translates into underpayment. Since more developed countries have reduced their contribution of uniformed personnel to PKOs in recent years, such states may have turned to alternative forms of support and thus may take their financial responsibilities to peacekeeping more seriously. In the vein of Gaibulloev et al. (2009), Economic Openness takes the total trade (imports plus exports) for that state as a proportion of its GDP in current US dollars (Barbieri and Keshk, 2016). States more vulnerable to the global economic impact of conflict will probably have a more vested interest in procuring peace. The final economic variable, Military Expenditure, takes the natural log of the state's military spending (Singer, 1987). States that spend more on defense may be more committed to global peace. Alternately, they may prefer to engage in more unilateral peace activities and therefore prefer not to divert funding to multilateral efforts such as the UN.

We include Polity Democracy Score, a measure of the level of democracy in that state, using the Polity IV scale of −10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy) (Marshall et al., 2017). Democracies are generally perceived to have greater support for both global peace and multilateral activities, as well as upholding human rights. We might therefore expect to see more robust spending on peacekeeping by those with stronger democratic institutions. Countries may also contribute more owing to perceived reputational benefits. States either vying for, or already holding, a seat on the Security Council should be more likely to fulfill their obligations to UN activities. We include variables indicating if the state is a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC P5 Member) or a non-member (UNSC Non-P5 Member) (Dreher et al., 2009). Finally, in terms of state-level factors, Colonial Power is a dummy indicator of states that have, at some point, held other countries as territorial possessions.

We also include peacekeeping-specific covariates. The first, Global Number of Missions, is a count of all UN operations taking place that year. A greater number of missions may reflect a greater burden for states and therefore enhance more selective contributions, leading to greater shortfalls. Second, State's Peacekeeping Personnel is the average monthly deployment of uniformed personnel (troops, police, and military observers) sent by the state to UN missions. Research indicates that the division of labor that has occurred within peacekeeping in recent years has led some states to disproportionately shoulder the burden of personnel contributions, which may in turn reduce their desire to contribute financially. Both measures are constructed from Kathman's (2013) data on peacekeeping personnel contributions.

In separate models we include region dummies to identify if certain regions are more compliant contributors than others. We include a count of years since the beginning of the data to address the fact that peacekeeping budgets have steadily increased over time, as not accounting for time may bias the estimates of other covariates similarly impacted by temporal change. We also include a dummy variable for contributions from the United States. As the world's biggest payer for peacekeeping, and one that underpays regularly, this will identify if the effects of other covariates are driven by the United States.

To test the impact of the above variables on financial shortfalls among states, we conduct regression analyses using two model specifications. To account for present heteroskedasticity across panels, we employ a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) method. To account for the possibility of inefficiency in the FGLS model (Beck and Katz, 1995), we run the same models applying ordinary least squares with panel-corrected standard errors. As shown in the results, the models perform very similarly. We also lag relevant covariates by one year to account for possible reverse causality.

Results and discussion

Table 2 shows results for tests of the determinants of state contributions to peacekeeping annually. Models 1 and 2 employ OLS with panel-corrected standard errors, where Model 2 replicates Model 1 but with the addition of the region and United States dummy variables. Models 3 and 4 follow the same pattern, but employ the FGLS method. Positive coefficients on the included variables indicate that increasing amounts of that variable lead to a state paying an increasing amount of its financial commitment.

Table 2.

Determinants of state's financial contributions to UN peacekeeping as a proportion of a state's assessed financial contribution, 1990–2010.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Method:	OLS	OLS	FGLS	FGLS
Log GDP_{(t − 1)}	0.078*** (0.005)	0.085*** (0.006)	0.089** (0.004)	0.091*** (0.004)
Economic Openness_{(t − 1)}	0.001*** (0.0001)	0.0004*** (0.0001)	0.001*** (0.0001)	0.0004*** (0.0001)
Log Military Expenditure_{(t − 1)}	0.008*** (0.002)	−0.001 (0.002)	0.006*** (0.002)	−0.005* (0.002)
Polity Democracy Score_{(t − 1)}	0.006*** (0.001)	0.005*** (0.001)	0.008*** (0.001)	0.006*** (0.001)
UNSC P5 Member	−0.133*** (0.03)	−0.034 (0.026)	−0.090*** (0.022)	−0.034 (0.022)
UNSC non-P5 member_{(t − 1)}	−0.029 (0.027)	−0.012 (0.027)	−0.015 (0.019)	−0.017 (0.018)
Global Number of Missions_{(t − 1)}	−0.004 (0.005)	−0.004 (0.005)	−0.005* (0.003)	−0.006* (0.002)
Log State's Peacekeeping Personnel_{(t − 1)}	0.013*** (0.005)	0.008* (0.004)	0.017*** (0.003)	0.013*** (0.002)
Year Count	0.005 (0.003)	0.005 (0.003)	0.004* (0.002)	0.004*** (0.002)
Colonial Power	0.099*** (0.019)	−0.042 (0.028)	0.056*** (0.019)	−0.100*** (0.020)
African Contributor		−0.164*** (0.030)		−0.233*** (0.022)
American Contributor		−0.301*** (0.032)		−0.383*** (0.020)
Asian Contributor		−0.100*** (0.036)		−0.169*** (0.019)
Oceanian Contributor		0.123* (0.051)		0.085*** (0.018)
United States		−0.187*** (0.059)		−0.174*** (0.059)
Constant	−1.662*** (0.114)	−1.476*** (0.143)	−1.890*** (0.075)	−1.461*** (0.091)
Observations	2338	2338	2338	2338
Wald χ²	2298.34***	5746.43***	3576.93***	6113.37
R ²	0.250	0.299

***p ≤ 0.01, **p ≤ 0.05, *p ≤ 0.1 (two-tailed). Standard errors appear in parentheses. For regions, Europe is the comparison. OLS, Ordinary least squares; FGLS, feasible generalized least squares.

Notably, the results are fairly consistent across all four models. In all four models, GDP is a positive and statistically significant predictor of financial contributions. This does not merely reflect the fact that wealthy countries have larger assessments, because the dependent variable reflects the proportion of assessment that is paid, not the overall financial contribution. This suggests relatively wealthier countries have either a stronger commitment or a greater capacity to pay their peacekeeping bills. While this may seem intuitive as wealthier countries tend to be more embedded in the international order, it also highlights an interesting phenomenon. Since the peacekeeping assessments are weighted based on GDP, the result suggests that countries with a greater burden are less likely to shirk that burden, while relatively poorer countries with a heavily discounted assessment are more likely to not pay. Prior research has argued that peacekeeping's financial crisis is a “rich country problem” (Bellamy et al., 2010: 64), but the results here suggest otherwise.

The positive effect of Economic Openness supports the argument that countries with greater global trade interests have a stronger commitment to securing peace through peacekeeping financing. This may be because such countries are more vulnerable to the economic impact of global conflict. However, Military Expenditure yields inconsistent results, with the coefficient sign flipping with the inclusion of the additional variables in Models 2 and 4. There does not seem to be a consistent relationship between states with greater military expenditures and financial support for peacekeeping.

Most indicators relating to UN activities yield no consistent impact on contributions. Non-permanent members of the Security Council are no more or less likely to pay their bills than other member states. As seen in Models 2 and 4, permanent membership on the UN Security Council is associated with smaller rates of contribution. However, this result disappears when controlling for the United States, suggesting the shortfalls associated with the P5 are driven by the United States' failures to contribute. The United States exhibits a weaker financial commitment to peacekeeping than the rest of the permanent members of the Security Council. Countries making larger contributions of peacekeepers (State's Peacekeeping Personnel) are also more likely to pay their peacekeeping bills. This suggests that such countries have a more general commitment to peacekeeping and are not deterred by a sense of disproportionate burden-sharing. Finally, regarding the global stretch of UN peacekeeping, there is evidence from Models 3 and 4 that the number of active missions decreases states’ overall satisfaction of their dues, suggesting that states may be deterred by having more diffuse financial obligations.

The coefficient for Polity Democracy Score indicates that stronger democracies are more likely to meet their financial commitments to peacekeeping. This reaffirms previous arguments that democracies are more inclined to support global peace efforts than others (Andersson, 2002; Lebovic, 2004; Perkins and Neumayer, 2008). Calculating marginal effects for Model 2 and holding other covariates at their means/medians, a strong democracy satisfies 64.6% of what it owes in a given year. This is compared with an average annual contribution of 53.7% for a strong autocracy (−10). However, even the strongest democracies at times exhibit shortfalls in payments.

There is no consistent evidence that former colonial powers are more or less likely to pay their dues, while the regional dummy variables indicate that countries in all regions except Oceania are significantly less likely to pay their dues than European countries. As revealed by Models 2 and 4, despite controlling for the United States, the regional Americas variable remains significant and negative, indicating that underpayment is a problem for American contributor-countries besides the United States. The regional results can be explored in future research using the contributor-mission form of these data. For instance, it may be the case that African countries are less likely to meet their financial commitments to African peacekeeping missions because they are bearing the costs for securing stability in the region in other ways.

To summarize, the analyses reveal that the most consistent positive predictors of a state's payment proportional to its assessment are GDP and economic openness, level of democracy, and contributions of uniformed personnel to PKOs. Wealthier countries and more economically open countries are more likely to meet their financial commitments to peacekeeping in a given year, as are stronger democracies. States who exhibit more commitment by making personnel contributions of peacekeepers are also more likely to meet their financial commitments. The most consistent negative predictors of states meeting their financial obligations are the United States and the regions of Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

Conclusion

This study presents a new line of inquiry into the resourcing behind UN peacekeeping, as well as a data collection project designed to assess peacekeeping's financial health. The Secretary-General of the UN has warned of a financial crisis for peacekeeping, and indeed, it seems that contributor-countries as a collective do not meet their financial commitments. We present a number of indicators which reveal that UN missions are not fully funded and that variation in commitments exists both among member states and across missions. There are also interesting dynamics across time; some contributors sustain relatively consistent payments, while others show great variation from one year to the next. Likewise, variation over time within missions suggests both that contributors may be responding to conditions on the ground in that mission, and that missions may face greater difficulty in funding their mandates in some years than others.

The statistical analyses suggest that contributor-level shortfalls are driven largely by domestic political and economic factors, where wealthier and more democratic states are more likely to pay what they owe, as well as states more invested in global trade. However, some of the world's major powers do set a poor example for meeting their financial commitments to peacekeeping, particularly the United States.

The findings also reveal some promising dynamics in the funding of peacekeeping. While peacekeeping expenses have quite dramatically increased, funding shortfalls have not increased with the same intensity. Contributing-countries do not seem to be cowed by the increasing cost of peacekeeping. Moreover, the countries that contribute the most to peacekeeping are not the largest shirkers of financial commitments, percentage-wise. In fact, the countries that owe the least to peacekeeping appear to pay the smallest proportion of their commitments. At the same time, shortfalls among the largest contributors do result in a larger amount of arrears. Given this, it seems that UN peacekeeping can improve its financial health by putting more pressure on contributing countries across all levels of commitment. It could also adopt a system for penalizing late payments or charging interest on arrears (Mir, 2019: 12). Pushing for more robust payments from wealthier countries, particularly the United States, would not only address some of the largest shortfalls, but may also motivate smaller contributors to meet their commitments.

This investigation offers a multitude of opportunities for further inquiry into the dynamics of peacekeeping financial support. Future studies might consider the mission-level factors that determine financial contributions, given that some operations appear to be better supported than others. Moreover, the impact of such shortfalls is an important phenomenon to understand. A lack of financial resources has the potential to threaten the success of peacekeeping operations by threatening their likelihood of success and tarnish the reputation of the UN. Future investigation could link financial shortfalls with existing considerations of mission success to understand how resources ultimately affect peacekeeping outcomes. Finally, if future research is able to obtain data on country-contributions after 2010, such an investigation might reveal changing dynamics. For instance, the rise of populism and increasing resistance to international institutions may reveal that some countries are less likely to support peacekeeping.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset by Timothy JA Passmore, Megan Shannon and Morgan Nadeau in Conflict Management and Peace Science

Supplemental Material

sj-dta-2-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental material, sj-dta-2-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset by Timothy JA Passmore, Megan Shannon and Morgan Nadeau in Conflict Management and Peace Science

Supplemental Material

sj-dta-3-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental material, sj-dta-3-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset by Timothy JA Passmore, Megan Shannon and Morgan Nadeau in Conflict Management and Peace Science

Supplemental Material

sj-do-4-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental material, sj-docx-4-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset by Timothy JA Passmore, Megan Shannon and Morgan Nadeau in Conflict Management and Peace Science

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for research assistance provided by Morgan Genelin, Anna Gray, Lorel Holsinger, Adriana Molina Garzon, and Christopher Jackson. We are also grateful for feedback from two anonymous reviewers, from participants of the Folke Bernadotte Academy's “State of the Art: The Future of Peacekeeping Data” workshop in Genoa, Italy and from participants of the Peace Science Society International 2020 conference workshop on peacekeeping. Finally, thanks are due to the Folke Bernadotte Academy for funding the project “The Politics of Authorizing and Financing UN Peacekeeping Missions.”

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Megan Shannon is an Associate Editor at the journal. This was declared prior to initial submission and she has not been involved in the submission process itself at any point.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Folke Bernadotte Academy.

ORCID iD

Timothy JA Passmore

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

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Supplementary Material

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Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping,1990–2010: A new dataset

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Brief historical background on financing UN operations

Why study financial support for UN peacekeeping?

Introducing the UN peacekeeping financial contributions dataset

Statistics and trends in financial support for peacekeeping

Preliminary analysis of states’ financial contributions to peacekeeping

Results and discussion

Conclusion

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental Material

sj-dta-2-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental Material

sj-dta-3-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Supplemental Material

sj-do-4-cmp-10.1177_07388942221081099 - Supplemental material for Financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, 1990–2010: A new dataset

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Supplemental material

Notes

References

Supplementary Material