Losing on the Home Front? Battlefield Casualties, Media, and Public Support for Foreign Interventions

58 Pages Posted: 27 Nov 2023

See all articles by Thiemo Fetzer

Thiemo Fetzer

University of Warwick; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Pedro Souza

Queen Mary University of London

Oliver Vanden Eynde

Paris School of Economics (PSE)

Austin L. Wright

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2023

Abstract

How domestic constituents respond to signals of weakness in foreign wars remains an important question in international relations. In this paper, we study the impact of battlefield casualties and media coverage on public demand for war termination. To identify the effect of troop fatalities, we leverage the otherwise exogenous timing of survey collection across 26,776 respondents from nine members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Quasi-experimental evidence demonstrates that battlefield casualties increase coverage of the Afghan conflict and public demand for withdrawal, with heterogeneous effects consistent with an original theoretical argument. Evidence from a survey experiment replicates the main results. To shed light on the media mechanism, we leverage a news pressure design and find that major sporting matches occurring around the time of battlefield casualties drive down subsequent coverage, and significantly weaken the effect of casualties on support for war termination. These results highlight the crucial role that media play in shaping public support for foreign military interventions.

Keywords: international security, public opinion, political economy, Afghanistan, NATO

Suggested Citation

Fetzer, Thiemo and Souza, Pedro and Eynde, Oliver Vanden and Wright, Austin L., Losing on the Home Front? Battlefield Casualties, Media, and Public Support for Foreign Interventions (2023). CESifo Working Paper No. 10770, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4643951 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4643951

Thiemo Fetzer (Contact Author)

University of Warwick ( email )

Gibbet Hill Rd.
Coventry, West Midlands CV4 8UW
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Pedro Souza

Queen Mary University of London ( email )

Mile End Road
London, E1 4NS
United Kingdom

Oliver Vanden Eynde

Paris School of Economics (PSE) ( email )

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Paris, 75014 75014
France

Austin L. Wright

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

1307 E 60th St
Chicago, IL IL 60637
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.austinlwright.com

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