IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2016-186-3.html

Violent and Non-Violent Strategies of Counterinsurgency

Author

Abstract

Responses to insurgency include both a large-scale societal reform directed at improving the lives of civilians and a direct military response with no additional programs to improve civilian welfare. In this paper, we ask, what is the optimal combination of aid and military response from the viewpoint of the state? Using a computational model, we evaluate what mix of these two strategies helps the government defeat an insurgency more quickly. Our model yields that aid may boost a military strategy that avoids civilian casualties, but it may not compensate for a military strategy that targets civilians indiscriminately.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna O. Pechenkina & D. Scott Bennett, 2017. "Violent and Non-Violent Strategies of Counterinsurgency," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 20(4), pages 1-11.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2016-186-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/20/4/11/11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Agnew & Thomas W Gillespie & Jorge Gonzalez & Brian Min, 2008. "Baghdad Nights: Evaluating the US Military ‘Surge’ Using Nighttime Light Signatures," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(10), pages 2285-2295, October.
    2. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    3. Efraim Benmelech & Claude Berrebi & Esteban Klor, 2010. "Counter-Suicide-Terrorism: Evidence from House Demolitions," NBER Working Papers 16493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Moshe Kress & Roberto Szechtman, 2009. "Why Defeating Insurgencies Is Hard: The Effect of Intelligence in Counterinsurgency Operations---A Best-Case Scenario," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 578-585, June.
    5. Kalyvas, Stathis N. & Balcells, Laia, 2010. "International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 415-429, August.
    6. Macartan Humphreys & Jeremy M. Weinstein, 2008. "Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 436-455, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamsin E. Lee, 2018. "The Thin Blue Line Between Protesters and Their Counter-Protesters," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 21(2), pages 1-10.

    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. Eric S Mosinger, 2018. "Brothers or others in arms? Civilian constituencies and rebel fragmentation in civil war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(1), pages 62-77, January.
    2. Helge Holtermann, 2012. "Explaining the Development–Civil War Relationship," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(1), pages 56-78, February.
    3. Helge Holtermann, 2011. "Explaining the Development-Civil War Relationship," LIS Working papers 566, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Babak Rezaeedaryakenari & Steven T. Landis & Cameron G. Thies, 2020. "Food price volatilities and civilian victimization in Africa," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(2), pages 193-214, March.
    5. Mueller, Hannes & Rauh, Christopher, 2018. "Reading Between the Lines: Prediction of Political Violence Using Newspaper Text," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 358-375, May.
    6. Maxime Menuet, 2024. "Natural Resources, Civil Conflicts, and Economic Growth," GREDEG Working Papers 2024-05, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    7. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    8. Martin-Shields, Charles P. & Stojetz, Wolfgang, 2019. "Food security and conflict: Empirical challenges and future opportunities for research and policy making on food security and conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 150-164.
    9. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Agustín Goenaga & Oriol Sabaté & Jan Teorell, 2023. "The state does not live by warfare alone: War and revenue in the long nineteenth century," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 393-418, April.
    13. Blouin, Max & Pallage, Stéphane, 2016. "Warlords, famine and food aid: Who fights, who starves?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 18-38.
    14. Daniel Krcmaric, 2018. "Varieties of civil war and mass killing," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(1), pages 18-31, January.
    15. Ana Arjona, 2014. "Wartime Institutions: A Research Agenda," HiCN Working Papers 169, Households in Conflict Network.
    16. Christiana Parreira, 2021. "Power politics: Armed non-state actors and the capture of public electricity in post-invasion Baghdad," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(4), pages 749-762, July.
    17. Omer Yair & Dan Miodownik, 2016. "Youth bulge and civil war: Why a country’s share of young adults explains only non-ethnic wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(1), pages 25-44, February.
    18. Solveig Hillesund, 2022. "To fight or demonstrate? Micro foundations of inequality and conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(2), pages 166-190, March.
    19. Peyman Asadzade, 2022. "Higher education and violent revolutionary activism under authoritarianism: Subnational evidence from Iran," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(2), pages 143-165, March.
    20. Reed M. Wood, 2014. "Opportunities to kill or incentives for restraint? Rebel capabilities, the origins of support, and civilian victimization in civil war," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(5), pages 461-480, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:jas:jasssj:2016-186-3. 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: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.