IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v27y2010i4p386-405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Tradeoff between Force and Casualties

Author

Listed:
  • Yagil Levy

    (The Open University in Israel)

Abstract

The Gaza War between Israel and Hamas in winter 2009, in which excessive use of lethal force caused the deaths of many Gazan non-combatants, shed light on how casualty shyness leads democracies to use excessive force to reduce the risk to which soldiers are exposed at the expense of the opponent’s non-combatant fatalities. This can be termed the force/casualty tradeoff (FCT). Because this tradeoff is only one manifestation of state action, a more thorough analysis is required to recognize variances in the state’s space of action. Arguably, and by drawing on the case of Gaza, the FCT reflects the interplay between two sets of legitimacies: legitimacy of sacrifice and the legitimacy to use force. The relations between these two legitimacies determine the state’s space of action in the military domain: low legitimacy of sacrifice coupled with high legitimacy to use force yields the FCT, while other variations in the profile of these legitimacies produce other results.

Suggested Citation

  • Yagil Levy, 2010. "The Tradeoff between Force and Casualties," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 27(4), pages 386-405, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:27:y:2010:i:4:p:386-405
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894210376438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894210376438
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894210376438?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lyall, Jason & Wilson, Isaiah, 2009. "Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 67-106, January.
    2. Niklas Schörnig & Alexander C. Lembcke, 2006. "The Vision of War without Casualties," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(2), pages 204-227, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrew M. Linke & Frank D. W. Witmer & John O'Loughlin, 2012. "Space-Time Granger Analysis of the War in Iraq: A Study of Coalition and Insurgent Action-Reaction," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 402-425, September.
    2. Clionadh Raleigh & rew Linke & HÃ¥vard Hegre & Joakim Karlsen, 2010. "Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(5), pages 651-660, September.
    3. Luke N. Condra & Michael Callen & Radha K. Iyengar & James D. Long & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2019. "Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections†," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 163-193, July.
    4. Kazuhiro Obayashi, 2014. "Information, rebel organization and civil war escalation: The case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 21-40, March.
    5. Theodore McLauchlin & Lee JM Seymour & Simon Pierre Boulanger Martel, 2022. "Tracking the rise of United States foreign military training: IMTAD-USA, a new dataset and research agenda," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 286-296, March.
    6. Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben & Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben, 2012. "Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6129, The World Bank.
    7. Marius Mehrl, 2023. "Female combatants and rebel group behaviour: Evidence from Nepal," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(3), pages 260-280, May.
    8. Benjamin Krick & Jonathan Petkun & Mara Revkin, 2023. "What Determines Military Legitimacy? Evidence from the Battle of Mosul in Iraq," HiCN Working Papers 402, Households in Conflict Network.
    9. Helge Holtermann, 2012. "Explaining the Development–Civil War Relationship," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(1), pages 56-78, February.
    10. Justin M. Conrad & Kevin T. Greene & James Igoe Walsh & Beth Elise Whitaker, 2019. "Rebel Natural Resource Exploitation and Conflict Duration," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(3), pages 591-616, March.
    11. Yuri M. Zhukov, 2014. "Theory of Indiscriminate Violence," Working Paper 365551, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    12. Marvin L. King & David R. Galbreath & Alexandra M. Newman & Amanda S. Hering, 2020. "Combining regression and mixed-integer programming to model counterinsurgency," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 292(1), pages 287-320, September.
    13. Ore Koren & Bumba Mukherjee, 2022. "Integrated Militias Can Increase the Risk of Civil War Renewal," HiCN Working Papers 366, Households in Conflict Network.
    14. Brancati, Dawn & Birnir, Johanna & Qutaiba Idlbi, Qutaiba Idlbi, 2023. "Locking down vIolence: The covid-19 pandemic’s impact on non-state actor violence," MPRA Paper 116781, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Jan 2023.
    15. Steven Chen, 2023. "A counterinsurgent (COIN) framework to defend against consumer activists," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(4), pages 275-301, July.
    16. Christian Davenport, 2022. "Against polarization," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 375-393, July.
    17. Sebastian Schutte, 2017. "Geographic determinants of indiscriminate violence in civil wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(4), pages 380-405, July.
    18. Christoph Mikulaschek & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2018. "Lessons on Political Violence from America’s Post–9/11 Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(1), pages 174-202, January.
    19. Laura Saavedra-Lux, 2024. "Quid pro quo: how the wartime economy shapes the violent contestation of the state after war," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2024-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Callen, Mike & Gulzar, Saad & Rezaee, Arman & Shapiro, Jacob N., 2024. "Extending the formal state: the case of Pakistan's frontier crimes regulation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123677, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    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:sae:compsc:v:27:y:2010:i:4:p:386-405. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.