Replication Data for: Peacekeeping, Compliance with International Norms, and Transactional Sex in Monrovia, Liberia

United Nations policy forbids its peacekeepers and other personnel from engaging in transactional sex (the exchange of money, favors, or gifts for sex), but we find the behavior to be very common in our survey of Liberian women. Using satellite imagery and GPS locators, we randomly selected 1381 households and randomly sampled 475 women between the ages of 18 and 30. These women answered sensitive questions about their sexual histories privately on an iPod to preserve the anonymity of their responses. More than half of them had engaged in transactional sex, a large majority of them (more than 75 percent) with UN personnel. We estimate that each additional battalion of UN peacekeepers caused a significant increase in a woman's probability of engaging in her first transactional sex. Our findings raise the concern that the private actions of UN personnel in the field may set back the UN's broader gender-equality and economic development goals. The findings also suggest that the efficacy of "norm makers" using international organizations to propagate particular standards of behavior is limited. In the case of transactional sex, norm diffusion among high-level diplomats and decision-makers, expressed in norm-consistent policies and rules, has apparently failed to effect desired behaviors among frontline personnel.