| ID | 180671 |
| Title Proper | Effect of civilian casualties on wartime informing |
| Other Title Information | evidence from the Iraq War |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Shapiro, Jacob N ; Shaver, Andrew |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | 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. |
| `In' analytical Note | Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 65, No.7-8; Aug-Sep 2021: p.1337–1377 |
| Journal Source | Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol: 65 No 7-8 |
| Key Words | Conflict Management ; Civil Wars ; Asymmetric Conflict ; Civilian Casualties |