Abstract

This paper investigates how democracies protect the lives of enemy civilians incounterinsurgency warfare. A theoretical model is developed where the elected leaders’decisions are influenced by what is known as ‘‘endowment effect’’ or ‘‘memory effect’’ incognitive psychology. It is shown that too many civilians are killed in equilibrium as theleaders choose to pass some of the long-term costs of civilian casualties to their successors. The bias becomes more pronounced when the leaders are subject to binding term limits. The existing law of war is interpreted and evaluated using the theoretical framework. Theanalysis shows that the law falls short of the optimal constraint as it regulates the relativerather than absolute size of civilian casualties.

Keywords

Civilian casualties, Counterinsurgency, Endowment effect, Memory effect, Law of war

40483_2014_11_OnlinePDF