IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/defpea/v28y2017i1p53-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War

Author

Listed:
  • Mario Ferrero

Abstract

This paper asks whether Bosnian Serb leaders’ choice to carry out a secession war in 1992–1995 was rational from the point of view of their stated goal of ethnic cleansing. We construct two indexes, one of ethnic purity and another of ethnic Serb concentration, and apply them to a counterfactual estimate of the outcome of ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing – what could have been achieved by population exchange based on pre-war territorial Serb power without war – in comparison to the actual outcome of the war. We find that the gross benefits of the chosen strategy of secession and war far exceed anything that could be achieved by the peaceful alternative. A conjectural assessment of perceived costs suggests that also net benefits were maximized by the war strategy. The implication for international deterrence policy is that credible judicial prosecution and punishment is the best way to alter the prospective perpetrators’ calculus.

Suggested Citation

  • Mario Ferrero, 2017. "The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 53-64, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:28:y:2017:i:1:p:53-64
    DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2015.1016294
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10242694.2015.1016294
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10242694.2015.1016294?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferrero Mario, 2013. "You Shall Not Overkill: Substitution Between Means of Group Removal," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 333-342, December.
    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. Ferrero, Mario, 2013. "Extermination as a substitute for assimilation or deportation: an economic approach," POLIS Working Papers 174, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.

    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. 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.
    2. Jurgen Brauer & Charles Anderton, 2014. "Economics and Genocide: Choices and Consequences," Working Papers 1408, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    3. Charles Anderton & Jurgen Brauer, 2014. "Economics of Genocide and International Law," Working Papers 1409, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    4. Anderton Charles H., 2014. "Killing Civilians as an Inferior Input in a Rational Choice Model of Genocide and Mass Killing," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 327-346, April.
    5. repec:bpj:pepspp:v:19:y:2013:i:3:p:285-290:n:15 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    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:taf:defpea:v:28:y:2017:i:1:p:53-64. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GDPE20 .

    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.