Inconstant Care: Public Attitudes Towards Force Protection and Civilian Casualties in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel

Janina Dill, Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin Valentino

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2023, vol. 67, issue 4, 587-616

Abstract: The choice between protecting friendly soldiers or foreign civilians is a critical strategic dilemma faced in modern war. Prevailing theories suggest that casualties among both groups depress war support in Western democratic societies. Yet we know little about how ordinary citizens balance force protection and civilian casualty avoidance, and whether public opinion differs across Western democracies. Using survey experiments, we test three micro-foundations for what we call individuals’ “harm-transfer preferences:†self-interest, perception of soldiers’ consent to risk-taking, and nationalism. We find that respondents’ perception of soldiers’ consent and respondents’ nationalism explain individual-level variation in harm-transfer preferences. Moreover, Israeli citizens are significantly more likely than American or British citizens to prefer protecting friendly forces over avoiding foreign civilian casualties. This is associated with higher levels of nationalism and the perceptions that soldiers do not consent to risking their lives in Israel compared to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Keywords: civilian casualties; public opinion; use of force; force protection; military recruitment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027221119768 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:67:y:2023:i:4:p:587-616

DOI: 10.1177/00220027221119768

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().