8 results on '"Joseph H. Felter"'
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2. Small Wars, Big Data : The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict
- Author
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Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, Vestal McIntyre, Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Vestal McIntyre
- Subjects
- Low-intensity conflicts (Military science)--Technological innovations, Insurgency
- Abstract
How a new understanding of warfare can help the military fight today's conflicts more effectivelyThe way wars are fought has changed starkly over the past sixty years. International military campaigns used to play out between large armies at central fronts. Today's conflicts find major powers facing rebel insurgencies that deploy elusive methods, from improvised explosives to terrorist attacks. Small Wars, Big Data presents a transformative understanding of these contemporary confrontations and how they should be fought. The authors show that a revolution in the study of conflict--enabled by vast data, rich qualitative evidence, and modern methods—yields new insights into terrorism, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Modern warfare is not about struggles over territory but over people; civilians—and the information they might choose to provide—can turn the tide at critical junctures.The authors draw practical lessons from the past two decades of conflict in locations ranging from Latin America and the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia. Building an information-centric understanding of insurgencies, the authors examine the relationships between rebels, the government, and civilians. This approach serves as a springboard for exploring other aspects of modern conflict, including the suppression of rebel activity, the role of mobile communications networks, the links between aid and violence, and why conventional military methods might provide short-term success but undermine lasting peace. Ultimately the authors show how the stronger side can almost always win the villages, but why that does not guarantee winning the war. Small Wars, Big Data provides groundbreaking perspectives for how small wars can be better strategized and favorably won to the benefit of the local population.
- Published
- 2018
3. Conditional cash transfers, civil conflict and insurgent influence: Experimental evidence from the Philippines
- Author
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Joseph H. Felter, Patrick B. Johnston, and Benjamin Crost
- Subjects
Insurgency ,Economics and Econometrics ,Cash transfers ,Poverty ,05 social sciences ,Control (management) ,Conditional cash transfer ,Development ,Popularity ,0506 political science ,Low intensity conflict ,0502 economics and business ,Development economics ,050602 political science & public administration ,Civil Conflict ,Economics ,Demographic economics ,050207 economics - Abstract
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are an increasingly popular tool for reducing poverty in conflict-affected areas. Despite their growing popularity, there is limited evidence on how CCT programs affect conflict and theoretical predictions are ambiguous. We estimate the effect of conditional cash transfers on civil conflict in the Philippines by exploiting an experiment that randomly assigned eligibility for a CCT program at the village level. We find that cash transfers caused a substantial decrease in conflict-related incidents in treatment villages relative to control villages in the first 9 months of the program. Using unique data on local insurgent influence, we also find that the program reduced insurgent influence in treated villages. An analysis of possible spillovers yields inconclusive results. While we find no statistical evidence of spillovers, we also cannot rule out that the village-level effect was due to displacement of insurgent activity from treatment to control villages.
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines
- Author
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Joseph H. Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, Michael Callen, and Eli Berman
- Subjects
Insurgency ,Government ,Sociology and Political Science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Poison control ,General Business, Management and Accounting ,Suicide prevention ,Politics ,Law ,Political science ,Political Science and International Relations ,Unemployment ,Political violence ,Survey data collection ,Demographic economics ,media_common - Abstract
Most aid spending by governments seeking to rebuild social and political order is based on an opportunity-cost theory of distracting potential recruits. The logic is that gainfully employed young men are less likely to participate in political violence, implying a positive correlation between unemployment and violence in locations with active insurgencies. The authors test that prediction in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines, using survey data on unemployment and two newly available measures of insurgency: (1) attacks against government and allied forces and (2) violence that kill civilians. Contrary to the opportunity-cost theory, the data emphatically reject a positive correlation between unemployment and attacks against government and allied forces ( p < .05 percent). There is no significant relationship between unemployment and the rate of insurgent attacks that kill civilians. The authors identify several potential explanations, introducing the notion of insurgent precision to adjudicate between the possibilities that predation on one hand, and security measures and information costs on the other, account for the negative correlation between unemployment and violence in these three conflicts.
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq
- Author
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Joseph H. Felter, Radha Iyengar, Luke N. Condra, and Jacob N. Shapiro
- Subjects
Insurgency ,education.field_of_study ,Engineering ,Civilian casualties ,business.industry ,Population ,Poison control ,Human factors and ergonomics ,Criminology ,Computer security ,computer.software_genre ,Suicide prevention ,Harm ,Injury prevention ,education ,business ,computer - Abstract
A central question in intrastate conflicts is how insurgents are able to mobilize supporters to participate in violent and risky activities. A common explanation is that violence committed by counterinsurgent forces mobilizes certain segments of the population through a range of mechanisms. We study the effects of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to quantify the effect of such casualties on subsequent insurgent violence. By comparing uniquely detailed micro-data along temporal, spatial, and gender dimensions we can distinguish short-run 'information' and 'capacity' effects from the longer run 'propaganda' and 'revenge' effects. In Afghanistan we find strong evidence that local exposure to civilian casualties caused by international forces leads to increased insurgent violence over the long-run, what we term the 'revenge' effect. Matching districts with similar past trends in violence shows that counterinsurgent-generated civilian casualties from a typical incident are responsible for 1 additional violent incident in an average sized district in the following 6 weeks and lead to increased violence over the next 6 months. There is no evidence that out-of-area events--errant air strikes for example--lead to increased violence, nor is there evidence of short run effects, thus ruling out the propaganda, information, and capacity mechanisms. Critically, we find no evidence of a similar reaction to civilian casualties in Iraq, suggesting the constraints on insurgent production of violence may be quite conflict-specific. Our results imply that minimizing harm to civilians may indeed help counterinsurgent forces in Afghanistan to reduce insurgent recruitment.
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Iraq and the Philippines
- Author
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Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro
- Subjects
Insurgency ,Politics ,Government ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Political science ,Unemployment ,Political violence ,Survey data collection ,Poison control ,Demographic economics ,Suicide prevention ,media_common - Abstract
Most aid spending by governments seeking to rebuild social and political order is based on an opportunity-cost theory of distracting potential recruits. The logic is that gainfully employed young men are less likely to participate in political violence, implying a positive correlation between unemployment and violence in places with active insurgencies. We test that prediction on insurgencies in Iraq and the Philippines, using survey data on unemployment and two newly- available measures of insurgency: (1) attacks against government and allied forces; and (2) violence that kills civilians. Contrary to the opportunity-cost theory, we find a robust negative correlation between unemployment and attacks against government and allied forces and no significant relationship between unemployment and the rate of insurgent attacks that kill civilians.
- Published
- 2009
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq
- Author
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Joseph H. Felter, Eli Berman, and Jacob N. Shapiro
- Subjects
Insurgency ,Economics and Econometrics ,Government ,Poison control ,Coercion ,jel:F51 ,jel:F52 ,CONTEST ,Natural resource ,jel:H56 ,jel:H43 ,jel:O53 ,Political economy ,Political science ,jel:O12 ,jel:H4 ,Military doctrine ,Panel data - Abstract
We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a government seeking to minimize violence by mixing service provision and coercion, and civilians deciding whether to share information about insurgents. We test the model using panel data from Iraq on violence against Coalition and Iraqi forces, reconstruction spending, and community characteristics (sectarian status, socio-economic grievances, and natural resource endowments). Our results support the theory's predictions: improved service provision reduces insurgent violence, particularly for smaller projects and since the "surge" began in 2007.
- Published
- 2008
8. Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: Effective Military Support to COIN
- Author
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Joseph H. Felter
- Subjects
Insurgency ,Engineering ,business.industry ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Professional development ,Computer security ,computer.software_genre ,Test (assessment) ,Security forces ,Internal security ,State (polity) ,Argument ,Political economy ,Elite ,business ,computer ,media_common - Abstract
The qualities and structures of a state's internal security forces have a significant impact on reducing the risks and overall casualties from insurgent violence. To test this argument, I introduce a new micro-conflict dataset on counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines between 2001 and 2008 and measure the relationship between conflict deaths and the capacities of small military units tasked with suppressing rebel threats at local levels. My empirical tests isolate qualities of security forces not directly tied to aggregate state resources. I find that small units possessing superior leadership, training, and access to local information are more likely to conduct effective and discriminate counterinsurgency. Deploying locally recruited soldiers with specially trained elite forces is particularly effective at achieving this potent combination of capabilities. These findings demonstrate that variation in the qualities of the military forces tasked with combating insurgent threats affect important conflict outcomes. Significantly, they indicate this variation is not fully determined by factors such as state wealth and level of development and that there is thus a major role for professional training of militaries in reducing the damage from, and possible prospects for, protracted insurgencies and civil wars.
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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