Civilian Casualties and Public Support for Military Action
Experimental Evidence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6284747 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Johns (0000-0002-4543-7463, University of Essex, Colchester, UK, corresponding author), G A Davies (0000-0002-9466-4566, University of Leeds), Graeme A M Davies (University of Leeds, Leeds, UK) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 251-281 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022002717729733 |
| OpenAlex | W2740984441 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 37 |
| References cited | 50 |
In contrast to the expansive literature on military casualties and support for war, we know very little about public reactions to foreign civilian casualties. This article, based on representative sample surveys in the United States and Britain, reports four survey experiments weaving information about civilian casualties into vignettes about Western military action. These produce consistent evidence of civilian casualty aversion: where death tolls were higher, support for force was invariably and significantly lower. Casualty effects were moderate in size but robust across our two cases and across different scenarios. They were also strikingly resistant to moderation by other factors manipulated in the experiments, such as the framing of casualties or their religious affiliation. The importance of numbers over even strongly humanizing frames points toward a utilitarian rather than a social psychological model of casualty aversion. Either way, civilian casualties deserve a more prominent place in the literature on public support for war
Action (physics · Criminology · Expansive · Framing (construction · Moderation · Political science · Public relations · Public support · Survey data collection · Gender, Security, and Conflict · History · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
How civilian casualty information shapes support for US involvement in an ally country’s war effort
Uncanny Valley
Drones and Support for the Use of Force
Critical cues
A Will to Win
Coups and the End of Mass-Killing Episodes
What Drives Support for Armed Humanitarian Intervention? Experimental Evidence From Dutch Citizens on International Law and Probability of Success
The Visual Framing of ‘Failed’ States
Continuity or Change
Public Perceptions of Women Peacekeepers in Troop Contributing Countries
External threat and human rights
Drones and the Study of Public Opinion
The enemy behind the scenes
A fragile public preference for cyber strikes
Why language matters
Revisiting the Emotion–Risk Interaction
Distinction, Necessity, and Proportionality
The human cost of war
The asymmetry of war support
A human capital model of the defense-growth relationship
Understanding public blame attributions when private contractors are responsible for civilian casualties
Inconstant Care
The named and the nameless
Costs and Cover
Dying to Win? Casualty Sensitivity, Partnership, and Willingness for Self-Defense in Taiwan
The Significance of Differences Interval
Democratic Reputations in Crises and War
Public Reactions to Secret Negotiations in International Politics
At War and at Home
Moral Logics of Support for Nonviolent Resistance
The Human Costs of the War on Drugs. Attitudes Towards Militarization of Security in Mexico
Attitudes toward the Use of Force
At Any Cost
Untying Hands
Consequences of civilian victimisation
Democratic distinctiveness, responsibility, and the politics of ethics in justifications of war
Violence against civilians and public support for the state
The Responsible Electorate
Paying the Human Costs of War
The Utility of Exemplars in Persuasive Communications
Sympathy and callousness
Explaining the Identifiable Victim Effect
“If I look at the mass I will never act”
Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim
On Judging the Significance of Differences by Examining the Overlap Between Confidence Intervals
Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Attitudes
Images of liberation? Visual framing, humanitarianism and British press photography during the 2003 Iraq invasion
The Psychology of Survey Response
Attributing and denying humanness to others
Culture Clash or Democratic Peace
Do all lives have the same value? Support for international military interventions as a function of political system and public opinion of target states
The Polls--Review
The Polls—Review
Success Matters
Victory Has Many Friends
Framing Effects on Public Opinion During Prewar and Major Combat Phases of the U.S. Wars with Iraq
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
Uplifting Manhood to Wonderful Heights? News Coverage of the Human Costs of Military Conflict From World War I to Gulf War Two
Not quite human
A Simple Theory of the Survey Response
Bands of Others”? Attitudes toward Muslims in Contemporary American Society
Democratic Peace or Clash of Civilizations? Target States and Support for War in Britain and the United States
Precision Weapons, Civilian Casualties, and Support for the Use of Force
Treatment Spillover Effects across Survey Experiments
Innocent Women and Children
War, Casualties, and Public Opinion
Public Opinion, the War in Iraq, and Presidential Accountability
Military Intervention Decisions Regarding Humanitarian Crises
Reassessing American Casualty Sensitivity
The Dynamics of Reciprocity, Accountability, and Credibility
Echoes of Vietnam
Gendered Realities of the Immunity Principle
On Behalf of a Grateful Nation
The Pretty Prudent Public
Foreign Policy and the Electoral Connection
Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage
Regarding the pain of others
Risk-transfer Militarism, Small Massacres and the Historic Legitimacy of War
The Multiple Effects of Casualties on Public Support for War
Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace
Mass Public Decisions on Go to War
Religion and American Attitudes toward Islam and an Invasion of Iraq
| Unique citing works | 37 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,63 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 37 |