Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T03:41:09.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Civilian Casualties, Humanitarian Aid, and Insurgent Violence in Civil Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2019

Jason Lyall Open the ORCID record for Jason Lyall [Opens in a new window]
Get access

Abstract

Indiscriminate violence against civilians has long been viewed as a catalyst for new rounds of violence in civil wars. Can humanitarian assistance reduce violence after civilians have been harmed? Crossnational studies are pessimistic, drawing a connection between humanitarian aid and increased civil war violence, lethality, and duration. To date, however, we have few subnational studies of wartime aid and subsequent violence. To examine this relationship, I draw on the Afghan Civilian Assistance Program (ACAP II), a USAID-funded initiative that investigated 1,061 civilian casualty incidents (2011–13). Aid was assigned as if randomly to about half (55.8%) of these incidents, facilitating counterfactual estimation of how assistance affected Taliban attacks against the International Security Assistance Force, Afghan forces, and civilians. Challenging prior studies, I find that ACAP was associated with an average 23 percent reduction in attacks against ISAF, but not Afghan forces or civilians, at the village level for up to two years after the initial incident.

Keywords

Humanitarian assistancecivil warcivilian casualtiescounterinsurgency
Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , Fall 2019 , pp. 901 - 926
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher, and Bartels, Larry. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Governments. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Arjona, Ana. 2017. Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Balcells, Laia. 2017. Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence During Civil War. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beath, Andrew, Christia, Fotini, and Enikolopov, Ruben. 2011. Winning Hearts and Minds? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan. Working Paper 2011-14, MIT Political Science.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary. 1968. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy 76 (2):169–217.Google Scholar
Berman, Eli, Felter, Joseph, Shapiro, Jacob, and Troland, Erin. 2013. Modest, Secure, and Informed: Successful Development in Conflict Zones. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 103 (3):512–17.Google Scholar
Berman, Eli, Shapiro, Jacob, and Felter, Joseph. 2011. Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq. Journal of Political Economy 119 (4):766–819.Google Scholar
Blattman, Christopher, Jamison, Julian, and Sheridan, Margaret. 2017. Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Liberia. American Economic Review 107 (4):1165–206.Google Scholar
Condra, Luke, and Shapiro, Jacob. 2012. Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage. American Journal of Political Science 56 (1):167–87.Google Scholar
Cook, S.W. 1971. The Effect of Unintended Interracial Contact Upon Racial Interaction and Attitude Change. US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.Google Scholar
Crost, Benjamin, Felter, Joseph, and Johnston, Patrick. 2014. Aid Under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict. American Economic Review 104 (6):1833–56.Google Scholar
Department of the Army. 2014. Field Manual 3–24. Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies. Available at <https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Development Initiatives. 2017. Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2017. Available at devinit.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GHA-Report-2017-Full-report.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Fast, Larissa. 2014. Aid in Danger: The Perils and Promise of Humanitarianism. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Galula, David. 2006. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. Praeger.Google Scholar
Hirose, Kentaro, Imai, Kosuke, and Lyall, Jason. 2017. Can Civilian Attitudes Predict Insurgent Violence? Ideology and Insurgent Tactical Choice in Civil War. Journal of Peace Research 54 (1):47–63.Google Scholar
Johnson, Thomas. 2018. Taliban Narratives: The Use and Power of Stories in the Afghanistan Conflict. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keene, Jennifer. 2014. Civilian Harm Tracking: Analysis of ISAF Efforts in Afghanistan. Center for Civilians in Conflict.Google Scholar
Leites, Nathan, and Wolf, Charles. 1970. Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic Essay on Insurgent Conflicts. Markham.Google Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2009. Does Indiscriminate Repression Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53 (3):331–62.Google Scholar
Lyall, Jason, Blair, Graeme, and Imai, Kosuke. 2013. Explaining Support for Combatants in Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan. American Political Science Review 107 (4):679–705.Google Scholar
Lyall, Jason, Shiraito, Yuki, and Imai, Kosuke. 2015. Coethnic Bias and Wartime Informing. Journal of Politics 77 (3):833–48.Google Scholar
Management Systems International. 2015. Afghan Civilian Assistance Program II: Final Performance Evaluation. Technical Report, USAID.Google Scholar
Masterson, Daniel, and Lehmann, Christian. 2018. Humanitarian Aid and Civil War: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Lebanon. Unpublished Manuscript.Google Scholar
Narang, Neil. 2015. Assisting Uncertainty: How Humanitarian Assistance Can Inadvertently Prolong Civil War. International Studies Quarterly 59 (1):184–95.Google Scholar
Narang, Neil, and Stanton, Jessica. 2017. A Strategic Logic of Attacking Aid Workers: Evidence from Violence in Afghanistan. International Studies Quarterly 61 (1):38–51.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Richard, Findley, Michael, Davis, Zachary, Candland, Tara, and Nielson, Daniel. 2011. Foreign Aid Shocks As a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict. American Journal of Political Science 55 (2):219–32.Google Scholar
Nunn, Nathan, and Qian, Nancy. 2014. US Food Aid and Civil Conflict. American Economic Review 104 (6):1630–66.Google Scholar
Paluck, Elizabeth, Green, Seth, and Green, Donald. 2018. The Contact Hypothesis Re-Evaluated. Behavioral Public Policy 1–30.Google Scholar
Petersen, Roger. 2001. Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons of Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polman, Linda. 2010. The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong With Humanitarian Aid? Henry Holt and Co.Google Scholar
Puri, Jyotsna, Aladysheva, Anastasia, Iversen, Vegard, Ghorpade, Yashodhan, and Brück, Tilman. 2014. What Methods May Be Used in Impact Evaluations of Humanitarian Assistance? Working Paper 22, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation. Available at <https://www.3ieimpact.org/evidence-hub/publications/working-papers/what-methods-may-be-used-impact-evaluations-humanitarian>..>Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald. 2006. Matched Sampling for Causal Effects. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sexton, Renard. 2016. Aid As a Tool Against Insurgency: Evidence from Contested and Controlled Territory in Afghanistan. American Political Science Review 110 (4):731–49.Google Scholar
Shaver, Andrew, and Shapiro, Jacob. 2018. The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War. Working Paper, Households in Conflict Network.Google Scholar
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. 2018. Stabilization: Lessons from the US Experience in Afghanistan. SIGAR.Google Scholar
Staniland, Paul. 2014. Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Stoddard, Abby, Jillani, Shoaib, Caccavale, John, Cooke, Peyton, Guillemois, David, and Klimentov, Vassily. 2017. Out of Reach: How Insecurity Prevents Humanitarian Aid from Accessing the Neediest. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 6 (1):1–25.Google Scholar
Strandlow, Daniel, Findley, Michael, and Young, Joseph. 2016. Foreign Aid and the Intensity of Violent Armed Conflict. Working Paper 24, AidData.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1970. Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination. Scientific American 223 (5):96–103.Google Scholar
United Nations Assistance Mission Afghanistan. 2018. Afghanistan: Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2017. UNAMA.Google Scholar
Wood, Reed, and Sullivan, Christopher. 2015. Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision During Civil Conflict. Journal of Politics 77 (3):736–48.Google Scholar
Zürcher, Christoph. 2017. What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and Violence? A Systematic Review. World Development 98 (10):506–22.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Lyall supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Lyall supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 730.8 KB