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Fetzer, Thiemo, Souza, Pedro C. L., Eynde, Vanden and Wright, Austin L. (2021) Security transitions. American Economic Review, 111 (7). pp. 2275-2308. doi:10.1257/aer.20200412 ISSN 0002-8282.
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Official URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.202...
Abstract
How do foreign powers disengage from a conflict? We study this issue by examining the recent, large-scale security transition from international troops to local forces in the ongoing civil conflict in Afghanistan. We construct a new dataset that combines information on this transition process with declassified conflict outcomes and previously unreleased quarterly survey data of residents’ perceptions of local security. Our empirical design leverages the staggered roll-out of the transition, and employs a novel instrumental variables approach to estimate the impact. We find a significant, sharp, and timely decline of insurgent violence in the initial phase—the security transfer to Afghan forces; we find that this is followed by a significant surge in violence in the second phase—the actual physical withdrawal of foreign troops. We argue that this pattern is consistent with a signaling model, in which the insurgents reduce violence strategically to facilitate the foreign military withdrawal to capitalize on the reduced foreign military presence afterwards. Our findings clarify the destabilizing consequences of withdrawal in one of the costliest conflicts in modern history, and yield potentially actionable insights for designing future security transitions.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | American Economic Review | ||||||
| Publisher: | American Economic Association | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0002-8282 | ||||||
| Official Date: | July 2021 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 111 | ||||||
| Number: | 7 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 2275-2308 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1257/aer.20200412 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, by the American Economic Association. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of American Economic Association publications for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not distributed for profit or direct commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation, including the name of the author. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than AEA must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. The author has the right to republish, post on servers, redistribute to lists and use any component of this work in other works. For others to do so requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from the American Economic Association Administrative Office by going to the Contact Us form and choosing "Copyright/Permissions Request" from the menu. Copyright © 2020 AEA | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 12 March 2021 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 19 July 2021 | ||||||
| Is Part Of: | 1 | ||||||
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