Whose Conflict Prevention Works: Strong States vs. The Legitimate World Organisation?

United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has frequently faced criticism for its perceived inability to act in a robust and decisive manner. On one hand, the UN lacks the military capacity required for enforcing order, while, on the other hand, its basic principles are said to be too weak for effective conflict prevention. Simultaneously, the UN can be considered a genuinely representative actor in conflict prevention, and as such, it possesses the representative legitimacy that unilateral great powers lack. This chapter compares the impact of unilateral great power interventions into conflicts and UN peacekeeping on organized violence. The results are then interpreted through the use of established and tested empirical generalizations. The comparison reveals that the UN is significantly more effective in reducing the fatalities resulting from organized violence. The UN's basic principles, which aim to facilitate locally owned solutions rather than imposing external ones, prove to be highly effective in preventing conflicts.