The Political Economy of Intervention in the Conflict Against ISIS

Haeffele, Stefanie, ed. Knowledge and Incentives in Policy: Using Public Choice and Market Process Theory to Analyze Public Policy Issues. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

70 Pages Posted: 25 Jun 2016 Last revised: 4 Nov 2021

Date Written: June 22, 2016

Abstract

Western elites and the general public agree that foreign intervention is needed to halt the
dramatic rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Policymakers hope to militarily defeat
ISIS while also resolving the civil crises in Iraq and Syria that allowed the group to flourish. In
the economics literature on foreign intervention there is an ongoing debate about whether the
approaches suggested for combating ISIS will be successful. The purpose of this paper is to
contribute to the conversation about Western intervention against ISIS by considering some of
the major challenges to achieving this objective from an economic perspective. Adapting a
framework used by economist Christopher Coyne and his coauthors for examining the
constraints on foreign intervention, I identify three “problems” that policymakers face: (a) the
knowledge problem, (b) the coordination problem, and (c) the problem of unintended
consequences. Cases of recent foreign interventions in the Middle East provide evidence for why
these problems should be taken seriously when formulating policy toward ISIS. I also explore
alternative policy options to foreign intervention.

Keywords: ISIS, Islamic State, Political Economy, Interventionism, Syria, Iraq

JEL Classification: D74, O20, P16

Suggested Citation

Wille, David, The Political Economy of Intervention in the Conflict Against ISIS (June 22, 2016). Haeffele, Stefanie, ed. Knowledge and Incentives in Policy: Using Public Choice and Market Process Theory to Analyze Public Policy Issues. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2795153 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2795153

David Wille (Contact Author)

George Mason University ( email )

3434 Washington Blvd
4th Floor
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

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