The price of a life: the confluence of strategy and legitimacy in civilian harm compensation
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Heard, Kaleigh S.
issued: 2023-08-03T20:34:23Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: It is estimated that since the Global War on Terror began in 2001, these wars have directly caused the deaths of 897,000 to 929,000 people, including 364,000 civilians (Cost of War Project, 2022). While efforts to mitigate civilian harm have grown, significantly less attention has been paid to what happens when civilian harm does, inevitably, occur. Theorized by counterinsurgency specialists to reduce or mitigate some of the population-centric strategic costs associated with civilian harm incidents caused by counterinsurgency forces, civilian harm response and compensation has become a central consequence management strategy used by Coalition forces in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. They are thought to assist counterinsurgents to obtain, retain, or regain legitimacy amongst affected communities in the aftermath of civilian harm incidents. However, efforts to respond to civilian harm incidents have varied widely in practice. Approaches, processes, and amounts of compensation have ranged widely across cases, begging the question— does civilian harm response and compensation ‘work?’ This study argues that for civilian harm response and compensation to be effective in contributing to counterinsurgency goals they must be designed with the needs and expectations of affected survivors, their families, and communities at the centre. In order to demonstrate this theory, I present evidence using process tracing and qualitative comparative techniques to analyze a wealth of primary and secondary data garnered from archival and interview-based research conducted in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. I show that in these contexts how militaries respond to civilian harm incidents matters greatly to achieving their strategic objectives and securing the central objective of counterinsurgencies—legitimacy—in the aftermath of civilian harm. In all nine cases, I demonstrate that it is only when the needs and expectations of survivors, their families, and communities are …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/85386
note: The Price of a Life: The Confluence of Strategy and Legitimacy in Civilian Harm Compensation by Kaleigh S. Heard M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2015 M.A., The Royal Military College of Canada, 2015 B.A., The University of Western Ontario, 2013 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2023 © Kaleigh S. Heard 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The Price of a Life: The Confluence of Strategy and Legitimacy in Civilian Harm Compensation submitted by Kaleigh S. Heard in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Examining Committee: Richard Price, Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia Supervisor Brian Job, Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia Supervisory Committee Member Arjun Chowdhury, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia Supervisory Committee Member Michael Byers, Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia University Examiner Hugh Gusterson, Professor, Anthropology, University of British Columbia University Examiner iii Abstract It is estimated that since the Global War on Terror began in 2001, these wars have directly caused the deaths of 897,000 to 929,000 people, including 364,000 civilians (Cost of War Project, 2022). While efforts to mitigate civilian harm have grown, significantly less attention has been paid to what happens when civilian harm does, inevitably, occur. Theorized by counterinsurgency specialists to reduce or mitigate some of the population-centric strategic costs associated with civilian harm incidents caused by counterinsurgency forces, civilian harm response a…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0434666
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Price, Richard M. (Richard MacKay), 1964-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85386