IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/abo/neswpt/w0166.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Winning Hearts and Minds through Development Aid: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Beath

    (Department of Government, Harvard University, and the World Bank)

  • Fotini Christia

    (Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Ruben Enikolopov

    (The New Economic School)

Abstract

Development programs have been increasingly used not only as an instrument for economic and political development, but also as a tool for counterinsurgency. Using a large-scale randomized field experiment we test this approach by examining the effect of the largest development program in Afghanistan. We find that the introduction of this program leads to significant improvement in villagers’ economic wellbeing as well as in their attitudes towards government. The program also leads to an improved security situation in the long run. These positive effects on attitudes and security, however, are not observed in districts with high levels of initial violence.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Beath & Fotini Christia & Ruben Enikolopov, 2011. "Winning Hearts and Minds through Development Aid: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," Working Papers w0166, New Economic School (NES).
    • Handle: RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nes.ru/files/Preprints-resh/WP166.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eli Berman & Michael Callen & Joseph H. Felter & Jacob N. Shapiro, 2009. "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Iraq and the Philippines," NBER Working Papers 15547, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Radha Iyengar & Jonathan Monten, 2008. "Is There an "Emboldenment" Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq," NBER Working Papers 13839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Oeindrila Dube & Suresh Naidu, 2010. "Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of U.S. Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia," Working Papers 197, Center for Global Development.
    7. 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.
    8. James D. Fearon, 2004. "Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 41(3), pages 275-301, May.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    4. Miaari, Sami & Zussman, Asaf & Zussman, Noam, 2014. "Employment restrictions and political violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 24-44.
    5. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    6. Travers B. Child & David Scoones, 2017. "Community preferences, insurgency, and the success of reconstruction spending," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 34-52, January.
    7. Arvind Magesan & Eik Leong Swee, "undated". "Is Happiness Really a Warm Gun? The Consequences of U.S. Weapons Sales for Political Violence," Working Papers 2015-09, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, revised 25 Jun 2015.
    8. Matthew Wells, 2016. "Casualties, regime type and the outcomes of wars of occupation," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(5), pages 469-490, November.
    9. Kristian Hoelscher & Jason Miklian & Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati, 2012. "Hearts and mines: A district-level analysis of the Maoist conflict in India," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 141-160, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Martin Gassebner & Paul Schaudt & Melvin H. L. Wong, 2020. "Armed Groups in Conflict: Competition and Political Violence in Pakistan," CESifo Working Paper Series 8372, CESifo.
    12. Eli Berman & Joseph Felter & Ethan Kapstein & Erin Troland, 2012. "Predation, Taxation, Investment, and Violence: Evidence from the Philippines," NBER Working Papers 18375, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Edgar H. Sanchez-Cuevas, 2018. "Fighting Fire with Aid: Development Assistance as Counterinsurency Tool. Evidence for Colombia," Documentos CEDE 16378, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    14. Thiemo Fetzer, 2020. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3337-3375.
    15. Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza & Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2018. "Natural resource rents and internal conflicts: Can decentralization lift the curse?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 186-205.
    16. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1802-1848, July.
    17. Tilman Br�ck & Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp & Andrew Tedesco & Alexandra Avdeenko, 2013. "Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys," HiCN Working Papers 153, Households in Conflict Network.
    18. Magnus Lundgren, 2017. "Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 613-641, December.
    19. Colin Jennings, 2012. "Rationalising ‘'Irrational'' Support for Political Violence," Working Papers 1212, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    20. Ferguson, Neil T.N. & Nillesen, Eleonora & Brück, Tilman, 2019. "Can employment build peace? A pseudo-meta-analysis of employment programmes in Africa," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 99-101.

    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:abo:neswpt:w0166. 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: Vladimir Ivanyukhin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nerasru.html .

    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.