IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v65y2021i7-8p1337-1377.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Shaver
  • Jacob N. Shapiro

Abstract

Scholars of civil war and insurgency have long posited that insurgent organizations and their state enemies incur costs for the collateral damage they cause. We provide the first direct quantitative evidence that wartime informing to counterinsurgent forces is affected by civilian victimization. Using newly declassified data on tip flow to Coalition forces in Iraq we find that information flow goes down after government forces inadvertently kill civilians and it goes up when insurgents do so. These results confirm a relationship long posited in the theoretical literature on insurgency but never directly observed, have strong policy implications, and are consistent with a broad range of circumstantial evidence on the topic.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Shaver & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2021. "The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(7-8), pages 1337-1377, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:65:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1337-1377
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002721991627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002721991627
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002721991627?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. Michael Greenstone & Rema Hanna, 2014. "Environmental Regulations, Air and Water Pollution, and Infant Mortality in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3038-3072, October.
    2. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    3. Eli Berman & Jacob N. Shapiro & Joseph H. Felter, 2011. "Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 766-819.
    4. Lyall, Jason & Blair, Graeme & Imai, Kosuke, 2013. "Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(4), pages 679-705, November.
    5. Eli Berman & Michael Callen & Joseph H. Felter & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2011. "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 55(4), pages 496-528, August.
    6. Luke N. Condra & Joseph H. Felter & Radha K. Iyengar & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2010. "The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq," NBER Working Papers 16152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Nils B. Weidmann, 2016. "A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(1), pages 206-218, January.
    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. Clionadh Raleigh & Roudabeh Kishi & Andrew Linke, 2023. "Political instability patterns are obscured by conflict dataset scope conditions, sources, and coding choices," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Diego A. Martin & Dario A. Romero, 2023. "Pretending to be the Law: Violence to Reduce the COVID-19 Outbreak," CID Working Papers 155a, Center for International Development at Harvard University.

    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 Shaver & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2016. "The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War," HiCN Working Papers 210, Households in Conflict Network, revised Oct 2016.
    2. Vicente, Pedro C. & Vilela, Inês, 2022. "Preventing Islamic radicalization: Experimental evidence on anti-social behavior," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 474-485.
    3. Noury, Abdul G. & Speciale, Biagio, 2016. "Social constraints and women's education: Evidence from Afghanistan under radical religious rule," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 821-841.
    4. Andrew Shaver & David B. Carter & Tsering Wangyal Shawa, 2019. "Terrain ruggedness and land cover: Improved data for most research designs," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(2), pages 191-218, March.
    5. 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.
    6. Sarah Langlotz, 2021. "Foreign Interventions and Community Cohesion in Times of Conflict," HiCN Working Papers 352, Households in Conflict Network.
    7. Daniel Karell, 2015. "Aid, Power, and Grievances: Lessons for War and Peace from Rural Afghanistan," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 10(2), pages 43-52, October.
    8. Vincent A. Floreani & Gladys López-Acevedo & Martín Rama, 2021. "Conflict and Poverty in Afghanistan’s Transition," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(10), pages 1776-1790, October.
    9. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    10. Francesco Amodio & Leonardo Baccini & Michele Di Maio, 2021. "Security, Trade, and Political Violence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-37.
    11. Crost, Benjamin & Felter, Joseph H. & Johnston, Patrick B., 2016. "Conditional cash transfers, civil conflict and insurgent influence: Experimental evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 171-182.
    12. Gustav Agneman, 2022. "Conflict Victimization and Civilian Obedience: Evidence from Colombia," HiCN Working Papers 379, Households in Conflict Network.
    13. 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.
    14. Singhal, Saurabh & Nilakantan, Rahul, 2016. "The economic effects of a counterinsurgency policy in India: A synthetic control analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-17.
    15. Miguel R. Rueda, 2017. "Popular Support, Violence, and Territorial Control in Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(8), pages 1626-1652, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Patricia Lynne Sullivan & Johannes Karreth, 2019. "Strategies and Tactics in Armed Conflict: How Governments and Foreign Interveners Respond to Insurgent Threats," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(9), pages 2207-2232, October.
    18. Gehring, Kai & Langlotz, Sarah & Kienberger, Stefan, 2018. "Stimulant or depressant? Resource-related income shocks and conflict," Working Papers 0652, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    19. Khanna, Gaurav & Zimmermann, Laura, 2017. "Guns and butter? Fighting violence with the promise of development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 120-141.
    20. Berman, Eli & Callen, Michael & Gibson, Clark C. & Long, James D. & Rezaee, Arman, 2019. "Election fairness and government legitimacy in Afghanistan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 292-317.

    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:jocore:v:65:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1337-1377. 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.