NATION BUILDING THROUGH FOREIGN INTERVENTION: EVIDENCE FROM DISCONTINUITIES IN MILITARY STRATEGIES

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dell, Melissa; Querubin, Pablo
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; New York University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjx037
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 701-764
• 关键词: civil conflict; aid; counterinsurgency; Vietnam; bases; WAR

摘要

This study uses discontinuities in U.S. strategies employed during the Vietnam War to estimate their causal impacts. It identifies the effects of bombing by exploiting rounding thresholds in an algorithm used to target air strikes. Bombing increased the military and political activities of the communist insurgency, weakened local governance, and reduced noncommunist civic engagement. The study also exploits a spatial discontinuity across neighboring military regions that pursued different counterinsurgency strategies. A strategy emphasizing overwhelming firepower plausibly increased insurgent attacks and worsened attitudes toward the U.S. and South Vietnamese government, relative to a more hearts-and-minds-oriented approach.