Master’s Thesis in Conflict Resolution & Governance
Local Perceptions of the Legitimacy of
United Nations Peacekeeping Operations
◈
A Case Study of the
United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire
Author
Felix Meyerhoff (12297844)
Supervisor
Dr. Anja van Heelsum
Second Reader
Dr. Michael Onyebuchi Eze
Words
Table of Content
List of Figures and Tables 2
1. Introduction: Legitimacy through whose eyes? 3
2. Focusing the Concept of the United Nations’ Local Legitimacy 5
2.1. The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding 5
2.2. What is Local Legitimacy? 7
2.3. Developing a New Framework of Local Legitimacy 11
2.3.1. Ideological Legitimacy 12
2.3.2. Procedural Legitimacy 14
2.3.3. Output Legitimacy 16
3. Case Study: UNOCI and the Second Ivorian Civil War (2010-2011) 18 3.1. Background Information on Côte d’Ivoire’s Civil War 18
3.2. The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire 19
3.3. Scope of the Case Study 22
4. Making Use of Quantitative Media Content Analysis 23
4.1. Research Design 24
4.2. Purposive Sampling of Newspapers and Articles 25
4.3. Coding Process 26
4.4. Limitations of the Research 27
4.5. Ethics Statement 29
5. Divergent Perceptions in Ivorian Media 29
5.1. The Ideological Legitimacy of UNOCI 32
5.2. The Procedural Legitimacy of UNOCI 36
5.3. The Output Legitimacy of UNOCI 41
5.4. UNOCI’s Contested Local Legitimacy 43
6. Conclusion 46
7. Bibliography 49
Photo: A member of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) on duty during a meeting between the former head of UNOCI, Bert Koenders, and village chiefs in Para. One month prior to the meeting, seven UN peacekeepers were attacked and killed at that
List of Figures and Tables
Figure Page
Figure 1: The three elements of the local legitimacy of United Nations peacekeeping operations 12 Figure 2: Percentage distribution of perceptions measured in the analyzed newspaper articles 30
concerning the overall local legitimacy of UNOCI
Figure 3: Percentage distribution of perceptions measured in the analyzed newspaper articles 33
within the element of ideological legitimacy of UNOCI
Figure 4: Percentage distribution of perceptions measured in the analyzed newspaper articles 37
within the element of procedural legitimacy of UNOCI
Figure 5: Percentage distribution of perceptions measured in the analyzed newspaper articles 41
within the element of output legitimacy of UNOCI
Figure 6: Percentages of sub-elements within all legitimizing measurements 44 Figure 7: Percentages of sub-elements within all delegitimizing measurements 45
Table Page
Table 1: Percentages and numbers of perceptions measured in the analyzed newspaper articles 31
concerning the overall local legitimacy of UNOCI
Table 2: Breakdown of percentages and numbers of perceptions in the analyzed newspaper articles 34
concerning the ideological legitimacy of UNOCI
Table 3: Breakdown of percentages and numbers of perceptions in the analyzed newspaper articles 38
concerning the procedural legitimacy of UNOCI
Table 4: Breakdown of percentages and numbers of perceptions in the analyzed newspaper articles 42
1. Introduction: Legitimacy through whose eyes?
The international legitimacy of United Nations (UN) peace operations is at an all-time high, reflected by the high number of deployed peacekeepers around the globe, as well as the large peacekeeping budget in recent years (UN DPKO 2018). Many scholars have previously discussed the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations by focusing on the perspective of the international community (Hurd 2002, Bellamy and Williams 2005). However, since international peacekeeping operations do not just take place on an international level, the significance of the so called ‘local level’ of international peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations has received much recognition in recent years. Official UN reports and guidelines have, for example, repeatedly identified the importance of this ‘local level’ for the effectiveness, success and sustainability of the organization’s peacekeeping operations. Many academic contributions have equally highlighted the need for local cooperation and the acceptance of the peacekeeper’s presence in the country of intervention (Mersiades 2005, Autesserre 2014). If the support of local populations is needed and they are ultimately supposed to be the primary beneficiaries of these peace operations, their perspective should be central in examining the legitimacy of international interventions. However, an active debate on the concrete sources and drawbacks of the UN’s legitimacy in the eyes of local populations has so far been absent from the contemporary literature on international peace operations. Despite its clear significance, we therefore actually know very little about how local populations perceive the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations. Conceptualizing the so called local legitimacy of international peacekeeping operations is a subject that counts on a very small, but slowly growing body of literature. However, the assessment of the local legitimacy of an international organization, such as the UN, in a country engaged in civil war is highly difficult. This is due to the fact that legitimacy in conflict is an exceptionally subjective, context-dependent and dynamic concept, heavily influenced by the fragmentation and contestation of any legitimate authority.
This thesis will therefore focus on local perceptions of the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations by conducting an in-depth case study of local perceptions in Ivorian media, concerning the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) during the
second Ivorian civil war. After more than thirteen years, UNOCI completed its mandate in June 2017 with no follow-on mission in place and is commonly referred to as a major success
story of international intervention. However, while there prevails a fierce debate on the UN’s procedure and performance within Côte d’Ivoire, there exists no empirical evidence on how the local population(s) perceived the legitimacy of UNOCI. My research will contribute to the growing body of literature on local legitimacy, by providing a concise theoretical framework and adequate empirical evidence. I will focus on finding out how Ivorians perceived the international intervention in their country, in order to counter the bias towards international narratives of the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations. My central research question therefore is, how the local legitimacy of UNOCI was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war.
In Chapter 2 of this thesis, I will first review the relevant literature on the so called ‘local turn’ in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, followed by a discussion of the small body of literature on the local legitimacy of the UN in conflict. This will consequently allow me to clarify which aspects potentially legitimize or delegitimize UN peacekeeping operations in the eyes of the local population. To this end, I will develop a new theoretical framework of the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations, which consists of three equally important elements: ideological legitimacy, procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy. Chapter 3 will then introduce the selected case by providing the necessary background information, in order to be able to contextualize the UN peacekeeping operation and second Ivorian civil war, which erupted as a direct consequence of the contested election between Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo in November 2010. In Chapter 4, I will introduce the employed quantitative media content analysis, justify my choice of data and explain the coding procedure. Subsequently, I will present my results by focusing on differences between the two opposite newspaper factions, corresponding to the two conflict parties. While the pro-Ouattara newspapers were generally in favour of the UN’s presence in Côte d’Ivoire, perceptions in the pro-Gbagbo were overwhelmingly negative. The subsequent discussion of the results and the applicability of my theoretical framework in Chapter 5 will clearly highlight the need for more contextualized micro-level analyses of the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations. Finally, I will give an informed outlook on why and how this local legitimacy can and should inform future international peacekeeping operations.
2. Focusing the Concept of the United Nations’ Local Legitimacy
In order to be able to answer my central research question of how the local legitimacy of UNOCI was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war, this section will review the relevant literature, define the central theoretical concept, explain how I developed a new framework of local legitimacy and subsequently discuss its applicability and transferability in the case of the UN peacekeeping operation in Côte d’Ivoire. After briefly reviewing the UN’s take on the ‘local level’ in peacekeeping, I will introduce the so called ‘local turn’ in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature in Chapter 2.1. This will allow me to identify what role local legitimacy plays in both UN policy and the relevant literature in Chapter 2.2. I will then analyze how local legitimacy is commonly defined and operationalized in the respective literature, in order to develop and adapt my own approach in Chapter 2.3, consisting of three equally important elements: ideological legitimacy, procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy. In the following, I will build on my theoretical framework of the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations in conflict to consequently demonstrate how this framework will be applied to the case of the UN peacekeeping operation in Côte d’Ivoire during the Ivorian second civil war between November 2010 and April 2011.
2.1. The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding
United Nations policy doctrine and scholarship alike have repetitively identified the inclusion of the so called ‘local level’ as crucial to the success of international peacekeeping operations. The UN Secretary-General’s High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations
(HIPPO), for example, has published a report in 2015, strongly emphasizing the significance of including the local population in UN peace processes: “Countries emerging from conflict are not blank pages and their people are not ‘projects’. They are the main agents of peace” (UN 2015, 48). At the same time, many scholars have argued that the idea, that international peacekeepers should seek local support for their activities has become “policy orthodoxy, but not practical reality” (Whalan 2017, 306). The frequency, with which the UN identifies the need for a better relationship with local populations in its reports on peacekeeping operations (UN 1996, UN 2000, UN DPKO 2008, UN 2015), suggests that lessons might have been identified, but not yet learned. Empirical research on the failures of many past UN
peacekeeping operations, for example, has exposed this emphasis on the ‘local level’ as a merely rhetorical tool, finding almost no application in practice (Brinkerhoff and Johnson 2009).
In response to these policy developments, a ‘local turn’ in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature has emerged in the last two decades. The currently growing number of research focusing on the ‘local level’ of international peace operations originated in the debate on “peace from below” in the mid-’90s (Leonardsson and Rudd 2015). The momentous failures of the international community in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia led to harsh criticism of peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies at that time. Simultaneously, the search for alternatives fostered the emergence of the concept of “peace from below”, putting a stronger emphasis on a more holistic approach, in which peace should always be “rooted in the local people and their culture” (Lederach 1997, 94). In response to the ongoing criticism of the UN’s peacekeeping and peacebuilding procedures, a new generation of international peacekeeping operations emerged in the early 2000s, trying to provide a more robust answer to the challenges of modern violent conflict (UN 2000). These new multidimensional peacekeeping operations included more explicit peacebuilding and statebuilding elements (Paris and Sisk 2007). Consequently, concepts such as local governance and local ownership of peace became central in the concurrently emerging discourse on these modern peacekeeping operations. Many peacekeeping scholars, like Pouligny (2006) or Autesserre (2014), have argued that local cooperation is necessary in order to make peace operations more effective. Furthermore, both have described local ownership of peace processes as an important prerequisite for the sustainability of a peacekeeping operation’s output. Many NGOs dedicated to the subject of peace, such as
International Alert, have also long campaigned for a bottom-up peace process, strongly advocating for a greater understanding of “people’s perceptions of peace and their views about the basic pre-conditions for bringing sustainable peace in their communities” (International Alert 2007, 1). In the last decade, a growing number of research has therefore already focused on local perceptions of international interventions and aid (e.g. Anderson et al. 2012).
Nevertheless, including local perceptions of the legitimacy of international peacekeeping operations has only been considered a practical advantage for improving an operation’s effectiveness and sustainability. There has been little discussion in the respective
peacekeeping and peacebuilding literature about what local legitimacy actually is and how it can be achieved. After all, local populations are most likely only willing to cooperate if they perceive a peace operation and the outside interveners as legitimate. Perceptions of the UN’s legitimacy therefore directly influence a local actors’ willingness to cooperate or resist and thus intrinsically shape the outcome of international peacekeeping operations (Gippert 2017). Even though the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations has repeatedly been described as mainly originating in the country of intervention and thereby being subject to constant change (Richmond and Mitchell 2011), most of the literature pays little attention to the subjective perceptions of local populations or their socio-political context, and instead focuses on the UN’s legitimacy on a national level (Whalan 2013). Furthermore, although the UN generally focuses on (re)building the state on a national level, some scholars have argued that local populations mainly perceive the root causes of conflict and their potential resolution at the sub-national level (Hellmüller 2013). However, research on the so called local legitimacy in these contexts is often carried out from an instrumental point of view, with the goal of generating policy recommendations to improve the e ffectiveness of peace operations, without taking into account their broader socio-economic and political context (Sabrow 2017). To help fill this gap in the literature, this research therefore focuses on local perceptions of the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations, as they are portrayed in local media during an ongoing conflict and its subsequent peacekeeping operation. Despite the immense importance of including local perceptions of legitimacy in all peace processes, they have so far remained understudied in the emerging ‘local turn’ in peacekeeping and peacebuilding research.
2.2. What is Local Legitimacy?
The concept of legitimacy, and local legitimacy more specifically, is considerably ambiguous in the respective literature. While some authors emphasize the subjective nature of legitimacy as a context-dependent perception and form of social interaction (Beetham 1991, Suchman 1995, Hurd 1999), others believe that there exists a universally applicable norm of legitimacy (Bodansky 1999). These opposing views highlight a prominent debate on legitimacy, concerning the question of whether an organization’s legitimacy can be understood by assessing subjective perceptions of it, or whether an organization’s legitimacy can be determined on the basis of universally valid principles. According to the first approach, the
UN’s legitimacy stems from the social relationship between the organization and its relevant audience. The second approach, however, considers legitimacy a potential attribute of the UN, which can be evaluated objectively by looking at factors, such as international norms and the organization's international legality. As this research is aimed at empirically analyzing local perceptions of a UN peacekeeping operation, it consequently makes use of a subjective understanding of legitimacy. This means that the assessment of legitimacy is understood as particular to each respective audience and can therefore not be generalised beyond this specifically analyzed relationship. Weber calls this highly context-dependent form of legitimacy ‘Legitimitätsglaube’, which signifies the belief of a relevant audience in the rightful legitimacy of a certain actor (Weber 1978).
It is crucial to note that all civil wars are inherently characterised by a serious contestation of the legitimacy of authority (Mitchell and Hancock 2018). This can either take the form of a contestation of an incumbent authority, like a government, or the fight for power among different conflict parties. Additionally to this absence of legitimate and consolidated authority, a common understanding of what characterizes and defines a legitimate authority is usually equally as contested (Dos Santos Parra 2019). Local populations in a country engaged in civil war thus perceive the legitimacy of an international peacekeeping operation on different levels on the subjective spectrum of legitimacy. The assessment of an actor’s overall legitimacy in the context of an internal conflict is therefore, arguably, highly difficult. For that reason, local legitimacy is context-dependent and particular to each respective audience within a country’s internal conflict. Moreover, in the case of international interventions by outside forces, conflict parties often try to appeal to the intervening international organization, in order to increase their own legitimacy in the fight over legitimate authority. This, however, often leads to an even more pronounced fragmentation of the already contested legitimate state authority (Mitchell and Hancock 2018).
There exist a few notable exceptions to the mentioned gap in the literature on the local legitimacy of international interventions. Gippert (2016), Sabrow (2017), Von Billerbeck (2017), and Whalan (2013, 2017) have addressed the issue of local legitimacy of international peacekeeping operations. Whalan, for example, has argued that the literature is still very “unclear [on] what local legitimacy actually means, how to analyze it, what causal processes are at work, and what might obstruct the operationalization of well-intentioned policy
recommendations for peacekeepers to seek local legitimacy” (Whalan 2017, 307). These few existing approaches towards a conceptualization of local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations can roughly be divided into three similar, yet distinct approaches.
Firstly, both Gippert (2016) and Von Billerbeck (2017) apply their prominent binary model, consisting of procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy. The UN derives procedural legitimacy from its behaviour and output legitimacy from what it achieves during its operations. These broad umbrella-terms both comprise a handful of sub-elements, each influencing legitimacy in different, sometimes even conflicting ways. In contrast to Whalan’s Rousseauian approach, the authors argue that more traditional accounts of legitimacy, based on the social contract between the state and its citizens, do not apply to UN peacekeeping operations. Since the peacekeepers constitute a temporary authority to the local population without being democratically elected or even appointed by a local institution, Gippert and Von Billerbeck instead argue that legitimacy is a social phenomenon, depending on the interactive relationship between the institution and its audience. However, despite their strong and coherent model, they can’t explain where the judgements of character and composition of the organization carrying out the intervention, fit into the assessment of local legitimacy. To illustrate this, even though a UN member state, such as France, might possess high degrees of procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy, evaluations of the country's colonial history in a country of intervention could potentially decrease the intervention’s overall local legitimacy.
Secondly, Whalan (2013) uses a tripartite framework, adding source legitimacy to substantive output and procedure, which is understood as the “legality, normative coherence, and capacity of an institution” and therefore constitutes an organization’s initial claim to authority (Whalan 2013, 65). Whalan builds on Max Weber’s approach to legitimacy, understood as the acceptance by some audience of the rightness of rulers. In the case of UN peacekeeping operations, these are the peacekeepers themselves, as well as their presence, objectives, and actions in the country of intervention. According to Whalan, analyzing local legitimacy therefore requires an examination of the power relations between peacekeepers and the local population. Although the UN might possess a high degree of legality and international legitimacy, the power relationship it establishes with the local population must always be justified by the extent to which its mandated goals match the interests of the local population(s). She also argues that the lack of local legitimacy in peacekeeping usually stems from three dominant sources: fragmented local audiences, the local-international legitimacy
gap, and the foreignness of peacekeeping. Even though Whalan clearly positions her work as part of the aforementioned ‘local turn’ in peacekeeping and peacebuilding scholarship, she often reinforces more ‘traditional’ attitudes towards the local population. She, for example, believes that the UN’s alleged expertise is a fundamental source of power, because of the “knowledge and information asymmetry between the institution and the population” (Whalan 2013, 67). However, Autesserre has proven that such a perceived asymmetry reinforces the socio-economic and hierarchical differences between peacekeepers and their local counterparts. This then often leads to “arrogant” interveners disregarding local ideas and thereby possibly decreasing the overall legitimacy of a peacekeeping operation (Autesserre 2014).
Finally, Sabrow’s (2017) concept of the local legitimacy of external interventions is distinguished in an ideological and a pragmatic element of legitimacy. Whereas ideology is based on the status and motives of the organization carrying out the intervention, pragmatic legitimacy refers to the perception and judgement of a peacekeeping operations’ outcome. Sabrow argues that, although the literature often grants the UN some sort of moral authority, local populations are likely to perceive UN peacekeeping operations as having a fairly low degree of ideological legitimacy. Host countries usually lack close historical and cultural ties to the UN, feel underrepresented in the organization’s decision making processes and sometimes ascribe ulterior motives to the Security Council and its member states. Sabrow is the only author that includes ideology as an element of the UN’s local legitimacy. She explicitly asks who the actor is and is thereby able to include questions of identity, history and culture, which makes her study of the norms and values behind peacekeeping operations very convincing. Nevertheless, Sabrow’s approach comes short at addressing procedural issues, such as professionalism, respect and impartiality of peacekeepers in the field. Finally, Sabrow is also one of the very few scholars that empirically analyzed perceptions of the UN’s local legitimacy. She measured the perceptions that the Malian population had of the French, ECOWAS and UN interventions in their country between 2013 and 2014, finding that “the UN force scores low in ideological legitimacy and is ambiguous in terms of pragmatic legitimacy” (Sabrow 2017, 159). However, Sabrow does not take the fragmentation of the Malian society during the country’s internal conflict into account, which raises questions about the general validity of her findings.
2.3. Developing a New Framework of Local Legitimacy
On the basis of the reviewed literature, I will now explain how I developed my own framework of local legitimacy and subsequently discuss each elements’ specific characteristics. On account of the above introduced and discussed three approaches, I decided to develop a new and more holistic theoretical framework, aimed at covering the full complexity and contextuality of the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations (Figure 1). My theoretical framework consists of three equally important elements, each acting as a broad umbrella-term: ideological legitimacy (who? & why?), procedural legitimacy (how?)
and output legitimacy (what?). These three elements all consist of a number of distinct and mutually exclusive sub-elements. Local populations and the international community have decidedly different expectations of what a peacekeeping operation should and can do (Talentino 2007). Local populations therefore perceive the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations on two interdependent levels. First, they have indirect and more general perceptions of the UN, originating from the time before the deployment of peacekeepers in their country, which mainly coincides with the element of ideological legitimacy. Secondly, they have direct perceptions of aspects such as the UN operation’s actual behaviour, performance and effectiveness in the field, closer related to their basic survival and own economic interest. These perceptions generally coincide with the elements of procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy. My framework contributes to the existing literature on local legitimacy, by adding a nuanced ideological element to the dominant elements of procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy. Although the elements of procedure and output are able to cover some ideological aspects through an assessment of the norms and values, which a peacekeeping operation exports through its reforms, they are incapable of exhaustively assessing historical, cultural and other abstract factors.
Figure 1: The three elements of the local legitimacy of United Nations peacekeeping operations
Arguably, local populations will take the three elements of ideological legitimacy, procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy into account when they are assessing the overall local legitimacy of a UN peacekeeping operation. My theoretical framework therefore consists of these three umbrella-terms, as well as a variety of sub-elements, allowing me to locate legitimizing and delegitimizing effects on a much more precise level (Figure 1). Each sub-element will be defined and illustrated in the following three chapters of this thesis, corresponding to the three elements of local legitimacy. This new theoretical framework of local legitimacy will allow me to answer my central research question of how the local legitimacy of UNOCI was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war. How exactly it forms the theoretical basis of my systematic content analysis of legitimacy perceptions in Ivorian media will be addressed in Chapter 4 of this thesis, where I explain the employed methodology, research design and sampling process of my data.
2.3.1. Ideological Legitimacy
Asking who the actor is allows me to identify legitimizing and delegitimizing effects based on the character and composition of the UN. First, local populations are likely to perceive UN peacekeeping operations as more legitimate when they are able to identify with the organization. A shared cultural background with the intervening peacekeepers will increase trust in the peacekeeping operation (Adeleke 1995) and will induce confidence that the UN understands the needs and wishes of the so called ‘peacekept’ (Clapham 1998). Various
accounts, however, have shown that UN troops usually do not possess the necessary knowledge of local practices and pay little attention to the culture of their host country (Millar et al. 2013). Secondly, UN peacekeeping operations that are deployed to countries, where the local population feels well represented by the organization, will seem more legitimate, compared to operations in countries, that might be marginalized by the UN. In the African context, the UN is often seen as not representing the continent well enough. Local populations will therefore likely have a harder time identifying with the organization, which potentially delegitimizes the peacekeeping operation (Pouligny 2006). Thirdly, historic ties between local populations and the interveners play an important role in local perceptions of legitimacy. A shared history might either have a legitimizing or delegitimizing effect (Sabrow 2017). In the Ivorian context, parts of the population perceived the operation as neo-colonial or neo-imperialist, due to the colonial history of some powerful member states of the UN Security Council. Laurent Gbagbo’s supporters have, for example, reproached the UN for “recolonizing” their country (Autesserre 2014, 204). Additionally, “the history of aid culture must also be taken into account” (Pouligny 2006, 160) in order to fully grasp the power relations between the UN and the local population. Pouligny also highlights the UN’s failure to acknowledge the past, which becomes another important factor delegitimizing peacekeeping operations (Pouligny 2006). Local populations might experience some frustration over not being able to talk about their past experiences and sufferings, an activity that Hannah Arendt described as being fundamental to human existence (Arendt 1998). Furthermore, local populations will likely look at the UN’s past record and take into account former peacekeeping operations in their region or on their continent. Finally, looking at the character of the organization also allows me to cover perceptions of the UN’s role as a fair mediator, based on the organization’s alleged moral, international, and legal authority (Donati et al. 2013).
Asking why the actor is doing something will allow me to check whether the values and norms behind a peacekeeping operation are accepted by the local population(s). Firstly, ideological legitimacy is strongly influenced by whether the local population accepts the norms and values, exported by the UN through the operation’s peacebuilding and statebuilding elements (Gippert 2016). The UN’s mandates usually include Western liberal norms, such as the promotion of democracy, the rule of law and a global liberal economy. However, as Donais phrases it, “international actors are both the producers and marketers of
the liberal-democratic product (the only product available on the market), which local actors are expected to buy, and subsequently own” (Donais 2012, 32). Hohe, for example, has convincingly demonstrated how the imposition of international rule of law standards, with little regard to local justice systems in East Timor, decreased the overall local legitimacy of the intervention (Hohe 2002). More generally speaking, this Western-oriented understanding of peacebuilding and statebuilding can therefore potentially delegitimize an international intervention by “reflecting the common emergence of a local postcolonial narrative about liberal peacebuilding’s endorsement of an international-local relationship, configured as managers and subjects” (Richmond 2009, 558). Finally, the motives that local populations ascribe to the UN and its member states are likely to influence perceptions of local legitimacy as well. Intervening organizations and peacekeepers that are believed to pursue ulterior motives, such as economic interests, will be considered illegitimate, as opposed to interveners that are motivated by a genuine humanitarianism (Verwey 1992). Together, these two defined sub-categories of who and why form the element of ideological legitimacy, adding a crucial aspect to the prevalent binary model in the literature on the UN’s local legitimacy (Gippert 2016, Gippert 2017, Von Billerbeck 2017).
2.3.2. Procedural Legitimacy
Asking how the actor carries out an intervention or peacekeeping operation allows me to identify perceptions of the UN’s procedure and behaviour in the country of intervention. The element of procedural legitimacy thereby covers the way the peacekeeping operation is conducted and is therefore a big part of the everyday legitimacy that peacekeepers have. It is linked to Hurd’s discussion of ‘correct procedure’, which engenders legitimacy through the way an organization exercises its power and behaves towards its relevant audience (Hurd 2007). Procedural legitimacy therefore arises when the UN’s exercise of power matches the local population’s beliefs about how such an exercise should look like. It therefore also represents the most dynamic element of local legitimacy, as it is highly time and context dependent: “it may be built, lost and rebuilt during the lifecycle of an operation” (SIPRI 2009, 106).
This kind of legitimacy partly arises from the way in which the UN, either collectively or its individual peacekeepers, generally treat the local population and relevant local actors specifically (Gippert 2016). Treating local populations respectfully and as equals
can therefore increase legitimizing perceptions of the UN’s local legitimacy. Secondly, the expertise and professionalism of the UN’s staff represent an important element of international peacekeeper’s procedural legitimacy. Although this sub-element is connected to the sub-element ‘Respect’, it is aimed more directly at the professional image of the peacekeeping operation. Tyler (1990), for example, found that procedural legitimacy normally arises when people recognize that decisions were made in an informed and generally accepted way. Thirdly, (im)partiality represents an important sub-element of procedural legitimacy, influencing those conflict parties directly, that believe that the peacekeeping operation is biased. Even though the sub-element of (im)partiality has generally become less important with the emergence of the so called third generation of UN peacekeeping operations on the international level, the local level will be influenced strongly by whether or not certain actors perceive peacekeepers as partial or not. Fourthly, host state consent and the respect of a country’s sovereignty may represent an alternative to democratic elections and the appointment by local authorities. It can therefore strongly influence perceptions of the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations (Bellamy and Williams 2005). However, local governments might not necessarily represent their local populations, thereby nullifying host state consent as a source of local legitimacy. Furthermore, the UN is often invited after the outbreak of conflict and usually as part of some peace negotiation or deal. Hence, hist state consent might not be given freely (Gippert 2016). Additionally, local legitimacy strongly depends on whether local populations believe that their sovereignty is at risk or not. Finally, the UN’s responsiveness represents another fundamental element of procedural legitimacy. It is achieved when the UN takes local perceptions and priorities into account, which gives the local population a voice in the peace process and can lead to an adjustment of the UN’s internationally mandated goals (Giffen 2013). Whalan, for example, conclusively demonstrated how the internationally backed Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) had high levels of procedural legitimacy, due to the fact that senior peacekeepers regularly consulted the local population on what the mission’s goals should be and how these should be achieved (Whalan 2013). Responsiveness also partially overlaps with the sub-element ‘Norms and Values’ of ideological legitimacy, taking into account the aforementioned inherent assessment of the norms and values exported by the UN.
2.3.3. Output Legitimacy
Asking what the actor does, allows me to include perceptions of the UN’s achievements or failures when it comes to the actual output of a peacekeeping operation. It’s worth noting that output has become a buzzword in the literature dealing with the legitimacy of international interventions. In this context, ‘output’ is often used synonymously with ‘performance’, thereby inaccurately oversimplifying the concept to a peacekeeping operation’s sheer actions (Steffek 2003). Much of the peacebuilding and statebuilding literature has so far linked the legitimacy of international interventions only to their performance, following Scharpf’s argument, that if an operation helped the local population to achieve stable peace, they will very likely perceive it as legitimate (Scharpf 1999). Coincidingly, Gutner and Thompson have argued that performance is “the path to legitimacy, and thus our ability to understand performance – what it is and where it comes from – is crucial” (Gutner and Thompson 2010, 228). However, output legitimacy should instead be understood as additionally stemming from the congruence of objectives between the acting institution or organization and its relevant audience (Gippert 2016). The full complexity of this form of legitimacy is reflected in my theoretical framework, allowing me to trace the concrete ways in which local perceptions of legitimacy arise from a peacekeeping operation’s output.
First, local populations’ perceptions of the UN are likely to be influenced by whether or not the interveners possess the necessary capacity and adequate efficiency to (re)instate peace and security in the country of intervention (Talentino 2007). Secondly, the emergence of output legitimacy always requires a strong congruence between the UN’s goals and the local populations’ reform wishes. Englebert and Tull (2008), for example, found that intransigently imposing Western statehood on fragile African states often led to the rejection of the corresponding norms, as interveners failed to adequately respond to local views and needs. This overlaps with the sub-elements ‘Responsiveness’ and ‘Norms and Values’ of ideological legitimacy and procedural legitimacy to some extent, as the three elements are inevitable linked to each other. Cerutti (2008) and Schmidt (2013), for example, have argued that the assessment of an organization’s legitimacy based on its performance is insufcient for legitimization, since all assessments of outcome also require a sort of ‘Weberian legitimacy’. By this, they mean that an audience equally assesses the norms, values, principles and motives, that are guiding an organization’s performance. In other words, even if an organization’s “policy performance is optimal in normative institutional output terms, if
the actual content of the policies clashes with values and principles, [...] then its output legitimacy is empirically in question” (Schmidt 2013). Local perceptions of output legitimacy therefore always depend on perceptions of a peacekeeping operation’s ideological legitimacy to a large extent, which the framework allows me to assess (Figure 1). Finally, output legitimacy also depends on whether the UN achieves the goals it set out to accomplish. Local populations will therefore take into account whether a UN peacekeeping operation succeeded in achieving peace and stability (Fortna 2008). When the UN’s actions do not match the operation’s mandated goals, this broken agreement is likely to aggravate tensions between the local population and the peacekeepers (Talentino 2007). This can either be influenced by indirect perceptions on a national and regional level or direct perceptions on the personal level. If, however, local populations assess a peacekeeping operation’s ideological and procedural legitimacy negatively, then output legitimacy is likely to be perceived so as well, as output legitimacy always possesses an inherent normative drawback. Finally, local perceptions of the element of output legitimacy might change after the end of a peacekeeping operation. The operation’s output could, for example, be evaluated very differently one, five or ten years after the end of a conflict.
The central research question will be answered by applying and transferring the newly developed theoretical framework of the UN’s local legitimacy to the case of UNOCI. This process, explained in Chapter 4.1, will allow me to answer the question of how the local legitimacy of the UN peacekeeping operation was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war. Furthermore, my analysis and following presentation of results in Chapter 5 will be guided by three sub-questions, corresponding to the three elements of local legitimacy. First, I will ask how perceptions of the element of ideological legitimacy influenced the assessment of UNOCI’s overall local legitimacy. Secondly, I will ask how perceptions of UNOCI’s procedure influenced the peacekeeping operations local legitimacy. Finally, I will ask how local perceptions of the peacekeeping operation’s output influenced the overall local legitimacy of UNOCI. But first, the next section will introduce the selected case study, to which the framework of local legitimacy will be applied. Chapter 3 will thereby contextualize Côte d’Ivoire’s second civil war, as well as the following UN peacekeeping operation.
3. Case Study: UNOCI and the Second Ivorian Civil War (2010-2011)
The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) is of special interest, because when consulting official UN documents on the completion of the peacekeeping operation, it appears as if it was highly successful in achieving its mandated goals of peace and stability. Jean-Pierre Lacroix, current UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, stated that „the transformation of [...] Côte d’Ivoire from conflict to peace and stability is a remarkable one“ (Lacroix 2018). The notion that Côte d'Ivoire has successfully recovered from its long lasting civil war can also be found in the majority of the relevant literature (Hunt 2016, Novosseloff 2018). In the case of Côte d'Ivoire, there were three different international interventions (UNOCI, the mission of the Economic Community of West African States and the French Opération Licorne) following the outbreak of civil war in 2002. Although the UN vociferously presents UNOCI as a major success story (UN DPKO 2017), perceptions on the ground were mixed. A popular term amongst Ivorians to describe UN peacekeepers was “n’y voient rien” (a wordplay on ‘Ivorians’, which sounds similar to ‘not seeing anything’ in French), referring to the UN’s poor performance in overseeing ceasefires (Autesserre 2014, 204).
3.1. Background Information on Côte d’Ivoire’s Civil War
Even though the reasons for the Ivorian civil war cannot be separated from the country’s precolonial and colonial past, this section will only provide a brief overview of Côte d'Ivoire's most recent history, in order to contextualize the internal post-election crisis of 2010 and 2011, as well as the UN peacekeeping operation in the country. After independence from France in August 1960, Félix Houphouët-Boigny and his Parti Démocratique de Côte
d'lvoire (PDCI) governed the country for 33 years. During his long incumbency as President of the country, the PDCI installed an autocratic and patrimonial political system (Langer 2010). In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Côte d’Ivoire experienced the so called ‘Ivorian miracle’, heavily profiting from a strong increase in the exportation of cocoa and a significant global increase in its price. The country soon became the world's largest cocoa exporter and developed into a regional business hub, attracting many labor migrants from across West Africa. As a direct result of this immigration, roughly 25 percent of the population in today’s Côte d’Ivoire has been born outside of the country (Langer 2010). But the economic prosperity quickly began
to fade and after Houphouet-Boigny's death in 1993, competing politicians instrumentalized the socio-economic disparities between the predominantly Christian South and the predominantly Muslim North to exacerbate existing ethnic and religious divisions within the country.
The 90’s were consequently characterized by a high degree of state fragility and severe political instability, fueled by an intensification of the debate on national identity. Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Konan Bédié introduced the concept of ‘Ivoirité’, which he instrumentalized to exclude all foreign-born individuals from national politics. As a consequence, Côte d’Ivoire’s former prime minister and leader of the opposition party
Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), Alassane Ouattara (of Burkinabé-Ivorian descent)
was prevented from participating in the presidential elections of 1995. This new political dynamic introduced a “tribal element into the political debate, which remained at the heart of future crises” (Novosseloff 2018, 3). In December 2000, Laurent Gbagbo, leader of the opposition party Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), won the presidential elections and utilized the concept of ‘Ivoirité’ to further discredit Alassane Ouattara and his RDR, thereby consolidating his newly acquired power (Bellamy 2011).
3.2. The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire
The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) was originally created after
post-election dissatisfactions culminated in a mutiny within the Ivorian military and a failed coup against then-President Gbagbo in 2002. The mutiny quickly developed into a full blown rebellion, mainly supported by soldiers and militias from the country’s north, which had previously suffered under the instrumentalization of the concept of a national identity. The rebels, led by Guillaume Soro and his Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire (FNCI), demanded
the abolishment of ‘Ivoirité’ and the full recognition of their contested citizenship (Bah 2010). As a response to the looming civil war and at the initial request of Laurent Gbagbo, the UN Security Council decided to establish UNOCI as an “ambitious and full-fledged multidimensional peacekeeping operation in April 2004” (Novosseloff 2018, 1). Initially authorised under Chapter VII by Resolution 1528 (2004), UNOCI was subsequently extended by UN Security Council Resolutions 1609 (2005), 1880 (2009), 1924 (2010) and 1933 (2010). On 30 June 2017, the mandate, last extended by Resolution 2284 (2016), expired.
The peace operation’s initial mandate consisted of the authority under Chapter VII “to use all necessary means” in order to “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence, within its capabilities and its areas of deployment” (UN SC 2004, 3). But regardless of its relatively robust mandate, the UN peacekeeping operation failed at sufficiently protecting civilians and preventing fighting between government forces and rebels. As the crisis therefore continued, Côte d'Ivoire found itself in a situation of “no war no peace” between 2004 and 2010 (McGovern 2011, 203), characterized by a number of broken ceasefires, failed peace agreements and nationwide severe acts of violence.
After Laurent Gbagbo eventually agreed to enter into dialogue with rebel leader Guillaume Soro, a transitional government was created and the latter appointed as prime minister. Since the situation in the country was deemed relatively peaceful in 2010, it was decided to finally hold the long-postponed presidential elections. However, the run-off between Gbagbo and his long-time political rival Alassane Ouattara on 28 November 2010 led to the reappearance of conflict related to the debate on national identity (Bassett 2011). On 2 December, the UN-supported Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) pronounced Ouattara the winner. But on the following day, the Ivorian Constitutional Council (ICC) declared Gbagbo the winner of the elections and called the IEC’s declaration unconstitutional. The first weeks after the election were characterized by sporadic and spontaneous outbreaks of violence throughout the country (McGovern 2011). After unsuccessful negotiation attempts between the two political camps, the post-election crisis entered its critical stage, as Ouattara's forces, supported by the FNCI, seized control of the majority of the country. During this crisis, Gbagbo relied on an anti-colonial rhetoric, which he used in order to delegitimize the UN’s presence in the country. Additionally, this helped him increase his “legitimacy and authority as president, defender of Ivorian sovereignty, and leader of a ‘second decolonization’ as he touched on some sensitive issues to many Ivoirians” (Charbonneau 2016, 186). By then, however, the UN Security Council had already officially declared Ouattara the winner, thereby dismissing the ICC's decision. From the point of view of the international community, “Gbagbo had power without legitimacy, while Ouattara had legitimacy without power” (Adebajo 2011, 159). This outbreak of widespread violence led to the death of approximately 3000 civilians and the internal displacement of up to one million Ivorians (ICG 2011). Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported numerous instances of human rights violations by both camps (HRW 2011). As the country entered into its second civil war
and the security situation in Abidjan aggravated, UN forces started protecting Ouattara at the city’s Golf Hotel. The participation of French forces in strikes against Gbagbo's forces eventually led to his apprehension on 11 April 2011. Although Ouattara quickly entered into office, many of Côte d’Ivoire’s internal conflicts remained unresolved. Some scholars asserted that “there was a general impression among the public that the side that had won the elections had instead won the war but not the elections” (Novosseloff 2018, 19). During both Ivorian civil wars, “France repeatedly intervened as a peace-broker, peacekeeper and peace-enforcer” (Wyss 2014, 132). In the aftermath of the 2010-2011 post-election crisis, many observers therefore acknowledged that, “without the French military intervention, the fighting might have continued for much longer as neither UN nor rebel forces seemed capable to defeat Gbagbo’s forces in Abidjan” (Charbonneau 2016, 626). However, the French embroilment in Côte d’Ivoire was also seen as highly controversial, as it dominated the international agenda, thereby making it very difficult for UNOCI to remain neutral or even impartial (Novosseloff 2018).
After Alassane Ouattara’s official inauguration on 21 May 2011, UNOCI entered the final phase of its deployment. After the security situation in the country began to stabilize, the national economy recovered surprisingly fast, with an average of nine percent annual growth. The former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly acknowledged this progress in March 2013 by stating that these “remarkable achievements reflect the genuine commitment and willingness among many of Côte d’Ivoire’s leaders and its people to turn the page and work together towards a more secure, stable and prosperous future” (UN SC 2013, 28). Novosseloff argued that UNOCI’s final phase of deployment was largely characterized by a “pressure to put the closing of the mission on the table of the Security Council”, as the UN was in “search of a clear success in peacekeeping” (Novosseloff 2018, 20). After the relatively peaceful and free presidential elections in late 2015, confirming Ouattara's presidency, UNOCI slowly conversed from peacekeeping to peacebuilding and started downsizing its operation gradually. UN peacekeepers eventually left Côte d’Ivoire militarily in April 2017 and lastly handed over to the UN country team in June 2017.
3.3. Scope of the Case Study
As described in Chapter 2.2, the local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations is a highly dynamic form of legitimacy, changing frequently throughout the lifecycle of a peacekeeping operation. In order to still be able to make valid statements, my analysis will therefore justifiably focus on the relatively short second Ivorian civil war from 29 November 2010 to 11 April 2011. This timeframe also represents the crucial and final stage of the country’s violent internal conflict from 2002 to 2011 and subsequent UN peacekeeping operation. The 135 days of fighting were a direct result of the disputed presidential elections between the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and his longtime political rival Alassane Ouattara. The scope of my research is therefore to identify and analyze indications in Ivorian media, of how the local population(s) in Côte d’Ivoire actually perceived the local legitimacy of UNOCI during this post-election crisis. This will be done by conducting a quantitative media content analysis, based on the in Chapter 2.3 developed theoretical framework. Such a detailed case study is the preferred strategy when asking “how questions” and studying “a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context” (Yin 1989, 23). The output of a peacekeeping operation is usually only assessed at the end of an operation. However, as this research focuses on local perceptions of UNOCI’s legitimacy during the ongoing second Ivorian civil war, the element of output legitimacy might thus be inherently less prominent in the dataset of retrieved measurements.
4. Making Use of Quantitative Media Content Analysis
Media can generally shape the public opinion (and vice versa) of a society through effects, such as agenda setting, framing and priming (McCombs 2004). This means that media partly influences which issues the public thinks about and how they do so. But most importantly, studying media can serve as a mean to monitor the “cultural temperature” of a society (Hansen et al. 1998, 92). Ideally, local media accordingly acts as a good indicator of local perceptions. In order to find out how the local legitimacy of UNOCI was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war, this research has therefore measured perceptions of UNOCI through a quantitative media content analysis of Ivorian newspapers. The use of quantitative media content analysis represents a specialized subset of content analysis and an overall well-established research methodology in social sciences (Macnamara 2005). Neuendorf even described this form of content analysis as “the primary message centred methodology” (Neuendorf 2002, 9). The local perceptions of the UN’s legitimacy were measured by conducting a systematic analysis of articles from five Ivorian daily newspapers, all published during the 135 days of the second Ivorian civil war. Although the Ivorian media landscape was relatively free at that time (Korson 2015), it was crucial to include different newspaper, as they often lacked an internal pluralism. Instead, Côte d’Ivoire’s media landscape was for the most part characterized by an external pluralism, in which the different publications represented the country’s different political, cultural, and social factions.
This section will show how my analysis was conducted and thereupon elaborate on my choice of data. In Chapter 4.1, I will first explain how I translated my theoretical framework into an operationalizable methodology and secondly argue how this helped me answer my central research question of how the local legitimacy of UNOCI was portrayed in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war. Chapter 4.2 will then consequently justify my previously mentioned choice of data and elaborate on its implications for the research, followed by an explanation of the coding process in Chapter 4.3. I will then address all limitations of my methodology and choice of data in Chapter 4.4. Finally, I will provide an ethics statement, briefly laying out some fundamental principles relevant to my research.
4.1. Research Design
Local perceptions of the legitimacy of the UN peacekeeping operation in Côte d’Ivoire were measured through a quantitative content analysis of five Ivorian daily newspapers. My theoretical framework of local legitimacy therein guided both the purposive data sampling, as well as the following process of coding and measuring. This matching of measurable variables and theoretical conceptualization is needed in order to achieve a high degree of internal validity (Macnamara 2005). While my research design allowed me to answer my central research question, it therefore also permitted the crucial development of a generalizable methodology and high degree of external validity. In order to assess the UN’s local legitimacy in Côte d’Ivoire during the country’s second civil war, this research employed a multivariable media content analysis, assessing the dependent variable (local legitimacy of the UN peacekeeping operation) by using a multitude of nominal level independent variables (sub-elements of local legitimacy). Each sub-element was defined in Chapter 2 of this research, in terms that were equally observable in the chosen media content. As the 14 sub-elements of local legitimacy represent small enough categories of measurement, definitions were conceptualized to achieve a maximum degree of exclusivity and sufficient exhaustion. Mutually exclusive categories are needed, in order to reduce the potential ambiguity of measurement as much as possible (Holsti 1969). In addition to this mutual exclusion, the independent variables also required to be exhaustive, meaning that every possible form of retrieved measurements from the relevant content had to fit into one of the chosen categories of measurement (Riffe et al. 2014). Perceptions of local legitimacy were given a binary attribute structure, as they either possessed a legitimizing (+1) or delegitimizing (-1) effect. This dimensional ordering informed the rules of enumeration used in the content analysis and guided the assignment of values for each independent variable (sub-elements of local legitimacy). Each sub-element of local legitimacy therefore represented a unique category of measurement with two different measurable nominal values. Finally, all relevant observations were then quantified. This form of multivariable quantitative content analysis finds an established precedent in Sabrow’s study of MNUSMA’s local legitimacy in the Malian conflict (Sabrow 2017).
The choice of data was made on the basis of a purposive sampling process. Purposive sampling requires a specific and valid justification (Riffe et al. 2014), which can be found in the timeframe of the civil war and scope of this research, explained in Chapter 3.3.
Additionally, how newspapers were selected on the basis of their importance and influence in Côte d’Ivoire will be addressed in the following section.
4.2. Purposive Sampling of Newspapers and Articles
The purposive sampling of articles in five Ivorian daily newspapers has been made on the basis of the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities Network’s (CDAC Network) country guide on Côte d’Ivoire’s media landscape, published after the end of the crisis in summer 2011. This comprehensive guide provides an in-depth analysis of all media outlets in the country, by indicating each newspaper’s political orientation, circulation volume and overall reach throughout Côte d’Ivoire. The purposive sampling process was comprised of two sequenced steps. First, the newspapers were identified and selected on the basis of their importance, with regards to a balanced distribution of their political orientation. Secondly, within the chosen newspapers, all relevant articles were collected, according to the in Chapter 4.1 established methodology.
The first step of the sequenced purposive sampling process consisted of selecting a total of five daily newspapers: Fraternité Matin, Le Patriote, Notre Voie, Nouveau Réveil and Soir Info. Soir Info represents a relatively unbiased source and maintained a “moderate voice, independent of all political factions, through each national crisis” (CDAC Network 2011, 61). However, Fraternité Matin, Le Patriote, Notre Voie and Nouveau Réveil were politically partisan, often acting as the “official mouthpieces of Côte d’Ivoire’s main political parties” (CDAC Network 2011, 58). Nevertheless, they equally represented the two opposing political parties, aligning with the two conflict parties and thereby allowing for comparison across both camps during the second Ivorian civil war. My choice of data thus constitutes the previously explained external pluralism. It is crucial to keep in mind that the Ivorian media landscape in 2011 was only partly free and highly polarized. Freedom House, for example, ranked Côte d’Ivoire in terms of freedom of the press 146th place out of 196 (Freedom House 2010) andReporters Sans Frontières ranked the country 118th place out of 178 (RSF 2010). While Fraternité Matinand Notre Voie openly supported Laurent Gbagbo and his FPI during the crisis, Le Patriote and Nouveau Réveil backed Alassane Ouattara and his coalition of the
Rassemblement des Houphouétistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RHDP), consisting of the former PDCI and RDR. Some of the chosen newspapers were directly affected by the ongoing civil war. Le Patrioteand Nouveau Réveil, for example, suspended their publication
during the first week of March 2011 in a joint protest against harsh persecution by Gbagbo’s government (RSF 2011). But the civil war also had serious implications for the pro-Gbagbo newspapers. In early March, for example, an employee of Notre Voie was “beaten and hacked to death” (RSF 2011). In Abidjan, attacks on offices and journalists from both camps were overall frequent. After Gbagbo’s capture in April 2011, Notre Voie even disappeared for a few months and only resumed publishing in July 2011. All five sources have been downloaded from the West African online media archivewww.monkiosk.com, on which they are easily accessible.
For the second step of the sequenced purposive sampling process, all articles that evaluated, judged or assessed UNOCI were collected from the five chosen daily newspapers. A total dataset of 261 articles was thereby retrieved and consequently coded, according to the in Chapter 4.1 established methodology. This process led to the creation of a new dataset, consisting of 327 retrieved measurements of local perceptions, that either possessed a legitimizing or delegitimizing effect on UNOCI’s perceived local legitimacy.
Even though popular radio broadcasts could have compensated for limitations related to the high illiteracy rate, they turned out to be of little help, since the most important radio station (RTI) got destroyed during the country’s second civil war and was therefore out of order for most of it (CDAC Network 2011). This then led to the fact that the official UN radio station was the only nationwide available radio source of news during the civil war. However, it did not broadcast any criticism of the peacekeeping operation or its staff, which makes an analysis of local legitimacy perceptions through official UN channels somewhat tautological.
4.3. Coding Process
All articles that evaluated or judged UNOCI, published during the second Ivorian civil war between November 2010 and April 2011, were collected and then coded according to the in Chapter 4.1 established rules and guidelines. The coding process was guided by an implementation of the operationalized theoretical framework of local legitimacy, which means that all retrieved measurements from the collected newspaper articles were assigned a value according to the above established rules of enumeration. The resulting dataset will allow me to consequently show how my theoretical framework of local legitimacy is grounded in the empirical case study While conducting the quantitative media content
analysis, I determined which of the defined independent variables the purposively selected articles mentioned. The sub-element ‘Respect’, for example, could have meant that the UN, either collectively or its individual peacekeepers, treated the host population with adequate respect. In this case, the sub-element was regarded as having a legitimizing effect (+1) on procedural legitimacy and thereby on the dependent variable (local legitimacy). On the other hand, if, for example, peacekeepers were accused of treating the host population badly (i.e. discrimination, sexual abuse, etc.), then this code was regarded as having a delegitimizing effect (-1). This will allow me to analyze which sub-elements were perceived to have the strongest effects on local legitimacy, either legitimizing or delegitimizing. This will therefore also permit me to assess to what extent the three main elements of local legitimacy appeared in Ivorian media during the country’s second civil war. Moreover, this will allow me to draw conclusions on the importance and role of the elements of ideological legitimacy, procedural legitimacy and output legitimacy in the local perceptions of the legitimacy of UNOCI. Consequently, this will also enable me to explain how my framework can explain the (lack of) local legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations. On the basis of the analyzed data, I will therefore be able to draw conclusions on local perceptions of the legitimacy of UNOCI during the 2010-2011 post-election crisis. I will also be able to contrast the differing perceptions of the UN and the local population(s) with each other, as the UN presents UNOCI as a major success story of an international intervention (UN DPKO 2017, Novosseloff 2018).
4.4. Limitations of the Research
The general validity of my findings is restricted by the limited readership of Ivorian newspapers. Since roughly 40% of Côte d’Ivoire’s population is illiterate and “very few newspapers are distributed and sold in the interior [of the country]” (CDAC Network 2011, 58), the selected daily newspapers might only represent the realm of the country’s urban population. At the same time, even in Sub-Saharan conflict zones, the media often provides a relatively free space in which multiple opinions are raised (Gagliardone and Stremlau 2008). Another issue related to my research design and methodology is the fact that the Ivorian population was divided during the civil war. This means that it will be difficult to produce valid statements for the entire population of Côte d’Ivoire. However, I will take this into account and analyze the local perceptions of legitimacy of Laurent Gbagbo’s supporters and
Alassane Ouattara’s supporters separately, thereby strengthening my line of argument. My findings are therefore still a very good indication of local perceptions, concerning UNOCI’s overall legitimacy. What’s most important, however, is the fact that even the most thorough media analysis remains a form of content analysis and not a tool to analyze the impact the analyzed media has on its audience. This means that even though my analysis provides a strong indication of local perceptions and opinions, no amount of quantitative content analysis can provide real evidence on what effect the analyzed media has on its audience (Chilton 2004). Moreover, the bias for negative news in contemporary media is worth mentioning. The relatively greater salience of negative news leads to that fact that negative news have an equally higher news value than positive news (Kanouse and Hanson 1972). Negative news therefore have a disproportionately higher appearance in the media coverage of political and social events (Niven 2001). This dynamic might influence my findings, because negative articles about the UN peacekeeping operation will likely be overrepresented in comparison to positive articles. Consequently, this might lead to an inherent bias towards the measurement of delegitimizing effects in any quantitative media content analysis of local perceptions.
Furthermore, quantitative content analysis usually requires at least two coders, to ensure intercoder reliability and thereby an overall reduction of subjectivity. However, as this research was conducted as part of a master’s thesis, having more than one coder was outside the possibilities. Although the chosen binary attribute structure and following dimensional ordering of findings helps illustrating the results of this research, it could potentially have a blurring effect on the assessment of more specific causalities. To stick with the example of the sub-element ‘Respect’ from Chapter 4.1, all delegitimizing perceptions were assigned the same value (-1). But arguing that, for example, sexual abuse and an arrogant behaviour of peacekeepers are equally as serious and should therefore be assigned the same value could potentially be problematic. This limitation is, however, balanced by the narrow scope of my case study, which focuses on a very restricted time frame and a single actor. Nevertheless, when carrying out more extensive research on local perceptions of the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping operations in the future, a sliding scale with more than two values might be needed. Finally, despite the ambiguity of translating legitimacy to a numeric score, such a score is still able to provide a very good and informative indication of local perceptions.
