Replication Data for: Quick. But Impactful? United Nations Quick Impact Projects and Violence against Civilians in Civil War

United Nations peacekeeping operations seek to protect civilians from violence in conflict. The UN’s ‘hard power,’ in the form of armed peacekeeping capacity, has been found to be effective in protecting civilians from rebel violence. However, the UN also wields ‘soft’ power in a variety of ways, including aid investments in the form of Quick Impact Projects that seek to meet local needs while building confidence in the operation and fostering support for peace. Yet, we know little about the effect of QIPs in supporting the UN’s peacekeeping objectives. We argue that UN peacekeeping aid investments are unique in that they disincentivize rebel groups from engaging in plunder and strategic violence against civilians to acquire resource benefits. Further, QIPs incentivize rebels to reduce violence against civilians out of concern for losing civilian support for their movement. We therefore expect that QIPs should reduce rebel attacks on civilians. We test this hypothesis with geographically and temporally disaggregated data on QIPs and rebel attacks on civilians in Africa. The findings support our expectations.