IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v19y2008i5p573-590.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rendering death and destruction visible: Counting the costs of war

Author

Listed:
  • Chwastiak, Michele

Abstract

This paper examines what costs are included and which are excluded from a war budget and why it is in the best interests of the U.S. political elite to under-cost warfare. It provides a social accounting for war that goes beyond the economic by documenting the human and social consequences of conflict. In so doing, it demonstrates the potential of social reporting for emancipation. If the U.S. government was required to disclose the social and human costs of a war, the horror would be revealed, making it difficult to rationalize violence as a means to an end.

Suggested Citation

  • Chwastiak, Michele, 2008. "Rendering death and destruction visible: Counting the costs of war," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 573-590.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:19:y:2008:i:5:p:573-590
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2007.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235407000147
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2007.01.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William D. Nordhaus, 2002. "The Economic Consequences of a War with Iraq," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1387, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. William D. Nordhaus, 2002. "The Economic Consequences of a War in Iraq," NBER Working Papers 9361, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Linda Bilmes, 2006. "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict," Working Papers id:387, eSocialSciences.
    4. Gray, Rob, 2002. "The social accounting project and Accounting Organizations and Society Privileging engagement, imaginings, new accountings and pragmatism over critique?," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 687-708, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lehman, Glen, 2010. "Perspectives on accounting, commonalities & the public sphere," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 724-738.
    2. Yu, Ai, 2021. "Accountability as mourning: Accounting for death in the time of COVID-19," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Harney, Stefano & Dunne, Stephen, 2013. "More than nothing? Accounting, business, and management studies, and the research audit," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 338-349.
    4. McBride, Karen, 2021. "A French connection; paths to a ‘new system’ of accounting for the Royal Navy in 1832," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    5. Jonida Carungu & Nicola Paolicelli, 2018. "L?intervento della Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena e il contributo del book-keeping nel "render conto" sulla gestione del terremoto del 1798," CONTABILIT? E CULTURA AZIENDALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2018(2), pages 85-117.
    6. Chwastiak, Michele, 2015. "Commodifying state crime: Accounting and “extraordinary rendition”," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-12.
    7. Christensen, Mark & Newberry, Susan & Potter, Bradley N., 2019. "Enabling global accounting change: Epistemic communities and the creation of a ‘more business-like’ public sector," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 53-76.
    8. Everett, Jeff & Friesen, Constance, 2010. "Humanitarian accountability and performance in the Théâtre de l’Absurde," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 468-485.
    9. Lehman, Glen, 2017. "The language of environmental and social accounting research: The expression of beauty and truth," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 30-41.
    10. Miley, Frances & Read, Andrew, 2021. "Soldiers don't go mad: Shell shock and accounting intransigence in the British Army 1914-18," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    11. Cooper, Christine & Catchpowle, Lesley, 2009. "US imperialism in action," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 716-734.
    12. Dillard, Jesse & Vinnari, Eija, 2017. "A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 88-109.
    13. Chwastiak, Michele, 2013. "Profiting from destruction: The Iraq reconstruction, auditing and the management of fraud," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 32-43.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olaf J. de Groot, 2012. "Analyzing the costs of military engagement," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 7(2), pages 41-49, July.
    2. Ryan D. Edwards, 2010. "A Review of War Costs in Iraq and Afghanistan," NBER Working Papers 16163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Tilman Brück & Olaf J de Groot & Friedrich Schneider, 2011. "The economic costs of the German participation in the Afghanistan war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(6), pages 793-805, November.
    4. Benedetto, Graziella & Rugani, Benedetto & Vázquez-Rowe, Ian, 2014. "Rebound effects due to economic choices when assessing the environmental sustainability of wine," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 167-173.
    5. Huntington, Hillard G., 2004. "Shares, gaps and the economy's response to oil disruptions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 415-424, May.
    6. Rigobon, Roberto & Sack, Brian, 2005. "The effects of war risk on US financial markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1769-1789, July.
    7. Olaf J. de Groot & Tilman Brück & Carlos Bozzoli, 2009. "How Many Bucks in a Bang: On the Estimation of the Economic Costs of Conflict," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 21, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Niall Ferguson, 2008. "Earning from History? Financial Markets and the Approach of World Wars," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 431-490.
    9. Bodea, Cristina & Elbadawi, Ibrahim A., 2008. "Political violence and economic growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4692, The World Bank.
    10. Rose Adam Z. & Blomberg S. Brock, 2010. "Total Economic Consequences of Terrorist Attacks: Insights from 9/11," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-14, June.
    11. Tilman Bruck, 2005. "An Economic Analysis Of Security Policies," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(5), pages 375-389.
    12. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "Who's Afraid of a Big Bad Oil Shock?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(2), pages 219-240.
    13. Amihud, Yakov & Wohl, Avi, 2004. "Political news and stock prices: The case of Saddam Hussein contracts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 1185-1200, May.
    14. Edwards, Ryan D., 2014. "U.S. war costs: Two parts temporary, one part permanent," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 54-66.
    15. Steven J. Davis & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 2006. "War in Iraq versus Containment," NBER Working Papers 12092, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Siu, Henry E., 2008. "The fiscal role of conscription in the U.S. World War II effort," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1094-1112, September.
    17. Kamin, Katrin, 2022. "Bilateral trade and conflict heterogeneity: The impact of conflict on trade revisited," Kiel Working Papers 2222, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Jordi Pons-i-Novell & Ramon Tremosa-i-Balcells, 2005. "Macroeconomic effects of Catalan fiscal deficit with the Spanish state (2002-2010)," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(13), pages 1455-1463.
    19. Viscusi W. Kip, 2019. "The Mortality Cost Metric for the Costs of War," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 25(3), pages 1-10, September.
    20. Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2016. "Is there a link between politics and stock returns? A literature survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 15-23.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:19:y:2008:i:5:p:573-590. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/critical-perspectives-on-accounting/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.