Offering the Carrot and Hiding the Stick? Conceptualizing Credibility in United Nations Peacekeeping

Credibility has been used to explain theories of deterrence and cooperation in international relations. In the peacekeeping environment, for what purposes should credibility be built and how can it be signaled? 
Despite being listed by the United Nations as a success factor in peace operations, our understanding of credibility in peacekeeping remains limited and focused on deterrence. 
‘Offering the Carrot and Hiding the Stick? Conceptualizing Credibility in UN Peacekeeping’ argues that credibility in peace operations must be built for both deterrence and cooperation purposes. Drawing on the international relations, civil war, and peacekeeping literatures, the article by VANESSA F. NEWBY, published in the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, conceptualizes credibility in peacekeeping by identifying the purposes for which credibility must be built and signaled: deterrence and cooperativeness. 
The author contends that while a peace operation’s ability to deter is limited, signaling cooperativeness – credibility in cooperation – enables a force to cultivate cooperation with national and subnational audiences. 
This helps to create a more predictable security environment by enabling the force to function on a daily basis.

Newby, V. F. (2022). Offering the Carrot and Hiding the Stick?, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 28(3), 303-329. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02803003