Arming the Peace: Foreign Security Assistance and Human Rights Conditions in Post-Conflict Countries

What are the effects of foreign security assistance on the quality of the peace in post-conflict countries? Despite the stakes, and the tremendous amount of weaponry and other forms of foreign military aid flowing to governments of post-conflict countries, the academic literature provides little guidance as to what effects policymakers and practitioners should expect from this type of aid. Military assistance provided to the government of a country emerging from the turmoil of civil war could enable the state to establish a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, leading to a more durable peace and greater human security. However, we contend that significant flows of military aid and weapons from foreign governments may encourage regimes to adopt more repressive approaches to governance. We investigate the impact of security assistance on human rights conditions after 171 internal armed conflicts that ended between 1956 and 2012 using a novel measure of military aid and an instrumented measure of weapons transfers. We find strong evidence that both military aid and arms transfers to post-conflict governments increase state repression.