Naming and Shaming to Protect Civilians During Peacekeeping: Lessons from South Sudan

Abstract

Abstract What can the United Nations do to strengthen the protection of civilians when it fails? When missions struggle to protect civilians, high‐level naming and shaming of non‐responsive units within the operation can occur to reorient the operation. Shaming helps rehabilitate the operation and achieve the protection of civilians. Using an interrupted time‐series design, I test this claim in the context of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which provides a hard test for the proposition as it occurred during mass atrocities and is often seen as a failure. Isolating short‐term versus long‐term effects helps illustrate that even in the hardest of cases, shaming can improve civilian protection.