Information Operations Increase Civilian Security Cooperation

Konstantin Sonin and Austin L. Wright

No 16269, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Information operations are considered a central element of modern warfare and counterinsurgency, yet there remains little systematic evidence of their effectiveness. Using a geographic quasi-experiment conducted during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, we demonstrate that civilians exposed to the government's information campaign resulted in more civilian security cooperation, which in turn increased bomb neutralizations. These results are robust to a number of alternative model specifications that account for troop presence, patrol-based operations, and local military aid allocation as well as a series of novel placebo tests and latent radio signal propagation approaches. The paper demonstrates that information campaigns can lead to substantive attitudinal and behavioral changes in an adversarial environment and substantially improve battlefield outcomes.

Keywords: Propaganda; Bayesian persuasion; Conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 D82 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16269 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Information Operations Increase Civilian Security Cooperation (2022)
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:cpr:ceprdp:16269

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16269

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().