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Killing Civilians as an Inferior Input in a Rational Choice Model of Genocide and Mass Killing

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  • Charles Anderton

    (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross)

Abstract

This article presents a rational choice model of a regime’s incentive to allocate resources to fighting rebels and killing civilians when facing an internal threat to its political or territorial control. Assuming that intentional violence against civilians is an inferior input and fighting rebels is subject to increasing marginal returns, three weak state conditions – anocracy, new state status, and low income – increase civilian atrocities within the model. Also, two other risk factors for mass atrocities – discrimination and Cold War conditions – can be seen as “price reducers” for killing civilians, thus increasing the quantity demanded for civilian atrocities in the model. The modeling exercises show how intentional violence against civilians can be viewed through an economic lens of optimal choice and how rational choice theory provides a parsimonious way to theorize and generate empirically testable hypotheses about risk factors for genocide and mass killing.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Anderton, 2014. "Killing Civilians as an Inferior Input in a Rational Choice Model of Genocide and Mass Killing," Working Papers 1412, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1412
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    Cited by:

    1. Charles Butcher & Benjamin E. Goldsmith & Sascha Nanlohy & Arcot Sowmya & David Muchlinski, 2020. "Introducing the Targeted Mass Killing Data Set for the Study and Forecasting of Mass Atrocities," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(7-8), pages 1524-1547, August.
    2. Eduard van der Merwe & Carolyn Chisadza & Matthew Clance, 2021. "Government Religious Preference and Intrastate Conflict," Working Papers 202124, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    3. Anderton Charles H. & Carter John R., 2015. "A New Look at Weak State Conditions and Genocide Risk," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 1-36, January.
    4. Piotr Lis & Michael Spagat & Uih Ran Lee, 2021. "Civilian targeting in African conflicts: A poor actor’s game that spreads through space," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(5), pages 900-914, September.

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