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Show THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH HONORS COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, INTRASTATE CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION: DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESS Kateira Aryaeinejad (Marjorie Castle) Department of Political Science University of Utah Humanitarian interventions represent the utilization of force by international actors and organizations in protecting innocent lives within increasingly violent, dangerous intrastate conflicts. However, not all are similarly capable of successfully intervening. Increasingly, an emerging pattern of interventional failure, speckled with the occasional success, has characterized the practice. This research seeks to determine which specific organizational structures and characteristics increase the likelihood that a humanitarian intervention will occur and result in success. With that goal in mind, I develop two main hypotheses which I then test against carefully chosen, controlled case studies representative of previous interventional efforts carried out by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, and the African Union. My first hypothesis states that "minilateral" international organizations with smaller memberships composed of like-minded states are more likely to initiate and carry out prompt, successful interventions. This suggests that smaller, less diverse international organizations are less likely to experience difficulties in reaching agreements regarding proposed actions than are their larger, more diverse multilateral counterparts. In testing this hypothesis, I utilize process tracing methodologies to examine the specific influence independent variables such as shared ideals and membership size have upon the enactment of interventions and their later success. Second, I hypothesize that among international intervening organizations, the presence of a global military superpower will increase the capacity of such organizations to intervene and do so successfully in humanitarian crises. This suggests that the increased military capabilities, resources, and the overall influence of global military superpowers will enhance organizational abilities to effectively enact and carry out interventions. In testing this hypothesis, I again utilize process tracing methodologies to determine the effects of these independent variables. Although it has been suggested that multilateral organizations with larger, more diverse memberships, represent the only legitimate means by which to carry out humanitarian interventions, conclusions reached in this study suggest that organizations with fewer, more like-minded members, are more effective in successfully resolving humanitarian crises. Additionally, I find that international organizations in which global military superpowers are present are more likely to resolve brutal humanitarian crises, even in cases where non-military methods are preferred. |