IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvir/2025010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic Drones

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Alfano

    (Lancaster University and RF Berlin)

  • Margaux Clarr

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

  • Jaime Marques-Pereira

    (Lancaster University, Economics Department, UK)

  • Jean-François Maystadt

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

US drone strikes are popular with the electorate and overseen by the President. This paper investigates whether the US President uses drone strikes strategically for political gain. We document that US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen are significantly more likely before US elections, when popularity has high payoffs. We find no changes for unpopular, piloted airstrikes. Consistent with unusually high drone approvals, abnormally cloudy skies before US elections lead to a postponement or redirection of strikes to other target countries. To examine whether drone strikes are used strategically to divert attention from damaging media coverage, we gather closed captions from all cable TV coverage of the President and analyze their tone using natural language processing. Drone strikes are more likely in weeks when news anchors cover the President more negatively, a relation that holds both during and outside of election periods. We find no such relationship for piloted airstrikes or during weeks of high news pressure.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Alfano & Margaux Clarr & Jaime Marques-Pereira & Jean-François Maystadt, 2025. "Strategic Drones," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2025010, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:2025010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2025010.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    drone strikes; strategic timing; conflict; political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    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:ctl:louvir:2025010. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    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.