Introducing the Mandates of International Organizations’ Missions (MIOM) Dataset: Comprehensive Data on the Mandates of UN and Regional Organizations’ Missions, 1989–2020

Abstract International organizations’ missions play an increasingly central role in statebuilding and peacebuilding processes in conflict-affected countries. While recent studies have begun to map the mandates of these missions, they are largely limited by the breadth and depth of disaggregation, the location, the time frame, and the mission-deploying organization on which they focus. To address this gap, I introduce the Mandates of International Organizations’ Missions (MIOM) dataset, which identifies up to 68 peacebuilding and statebuilding activities within the mandates of all United Nations and regional organizations’ missions deployed to conflict and post-conflict settings in the post-Cold War era (1989–2020). For each mission mandate, MIOM captures both the set of mandated activities and the mandated level of involvement in each activity. I demonstrate MIOM's utility by mapping both the distribution of mandated activities over time and the clustering of activities within the missions of specific organizations; I also re-evaluate Joshi, Lee, and Mac Ginty's (2017) analyses of the impact of verification mechanisms and mission deployment on peace agreement implementation. These analyses demonstrate empirically the increased patterns of activity specialization among international organizations’ missions, and they highlight how variation in missions’ mandated activities is consequential for important peace outcomes.