The lack of association between peacekeeping and
democratization might have little to do with the former and more with the specific barriers in promoting
democratic processes and institutions. Peacekeeping
cannot rectify problems with flawed constitutions and
institutions nor the provision of basic security and
economic well-being in the long run.
Monica Toft argues for the benefits of a decisive
military victory, specifically one in which a rebel
group succeeds in wresting power from the government. In this situation, she argues, victorious rebels
take the organizational skills and any popularity that
allowed them to win the war, and implement effective
political reforms that set the country on a path to democracy. In her analysis, countries that end wars with
settlements (most peacekeeping operations would fit
in this category) have a temporary increase in the level
of democracy, but then reverse course and repress dissidents so much so that within a generation, political
institutions are actually less democratic than when
the war ended. Nevertheless, the other authors cited
above are unable to reproduce Toft’s findings about a
rebel victory controlling a country’s level of democracy.47 Instead, they find no relationship between rebel
victory and the before “level” of democracy,48 or ev [