The continuous increase of civil war and post-civil war situations requires a very specific focus on the issue of post-civil war democratization, to prevent further violence and achieve long- run peaceful solution. This thorough research has provided an ample understanding, narrowed through the use of one theory and one framework of analysis, of post-civil war democratization and post-civil war elections. Elections after civil wars are an extremely complex business but with a well-managed framework it is possible to achieve democratization in the long-run. This thesis
sought to answer the question: how has the UN favoured the ground for democratization in
post-civil war situations in sub-Saharan Africa? The literature review provided gave ample ground on which to base the subsequent discussion of which this thesis found that the UN is indeed a powerful force in ensuring the grounds for democratization after a civil war, ahead of numerous other foreign agencies or organizations. This is due to several reasons: firstly, its presence has led consistently to democratizing elections, and, the ampler the mandate, the higher likelihood for democratization to occur. Secondly, the authoritative nature that the UN has over other
organizations provides an appeasing force and a possible solution to the credible commitment problem. Also, an under-funded UN mission can easily be correlated to poor incentives given to the democratization of a country.
The two sub-units analysed exemplified two cases in which the UN had an opposing presence. In one case, the UN mission was given an enormous amount of responsibility and funds, whilst in the other one it did not have any significant role nor funds and therefore its presence was meaningless to the political forces present. This can be linked to the fact that, while Sierra Leone’s end of the war was through a negotiated settlement, Angola’s end was through a military victory of one party over the other. As explained by Joshi, this directly relates to the likelihood of
democratization. Therefore, this research, through an accurate analysis of the literature, has found that the UN is indeed the most important third party democratizing organization globally today, with regards to post-conflict societies. Its presence in such countries, however needs to be
expanded, since it has been observed that, without a strong mandate, the UN will not succeed in its actions.
While it is important to take into consideration the factors analysed in the literature review and the introduction, following this research, it has been highlighted that such factors (especially
with regards to timing of elections) are extremely context-specific. Sierra Leone’s election took place the year the war officially ended and still democratized, while Angola’s elections of 1992 brought the country back to violence and the first election after the end of the civil war, in 2008, six year later, was definitely undemocratic. There is therefore inconsistency with some of the literature. However, statistically, UN presence has been beneficial for the democratization of country.
There are several recommendations to be drawn from this study. It is important to advice policy-makers on the necessity to involve the UN as much as possible, if a country is truly reaching for democratization. This should be done through coordination and discussion between the
government in question, the opposition and the regional organizations involved. Furthermore, if the UN is involved in trying to achieve post-civil war democratization, they must have a strong support for the mission, as ill-funded missions can be inconsequential in the long-run. Also, the time
framework of how long a UN mission should last must be expanded, since the study suggests that the longer a UN mission is, the higher the likelihood of democratization. This research has been an explorative study which has highlighted the importance of increasing research, strategies and funds in the implementation of elections. These strategies must be malleable since, as explained above, context specificity and preconditions make each conflict different from the other. To continue in the vein of this research, exploring cases through Joshi is important. The author is continuously
improving his theory regarding democratization after a civil war and must be regarded as a fundamental contributor to this field of study. Re-analysing these cases through new acquired literature, which is ever-evolving, will improve not only the knowledge surrounding these sub-units, but also the one surrounding the UN as a whole.
This research, however, does possess several limitations. The single-case study with the two sub-units, albeit correctly giving a focus to the research, can limit the statistical relevancy of the study. It is important, in the future, to have fresh, large-N studies on the impact of the UN on each democratization and these need to be constantly updated. Furthermore, even if aided by the
literature, this research may appear biased to some extent, since it gives little relevance to the importance of regional organizations in implementing a model for democratization. Therefore, a research on such topics could provide a fresher outlook and possibly aid with the necessity for coordination of the UN at the regional level. Another important point the research does not account for is the problems that the UN have caused at a local level, which this research has not highlighted but should play a role in keeping the UN missions more accountable in the future. Finally, as stated in the introduction, this research’s narrow scope geographically limits the usefulness of the research
since this analysis can be applied almost exclusively to the sub-Saharan region. It can be helpful to perform several case studies analysis such as this one for each UN case so there can be an analysis of the way a mission has been created and in what way the policy decisions influence positively or negatively each missions and seek to find correlations to this study or previous ones.
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