'The human cost of war: An experimental study of Taiwanese attitudes towards war casualties' - by CWP alum Ronan Tse-min Fu, Weiwen Yin, and Enze Han
This paper investigates public attitudes toward types of war casualties. Through a survey experiment, we examine Taiwanese responses to hypothetical scenarios involving casualties among Taiwan's own military, the US military as allies, the Chinese military as enemy combatants, and mainland Chinese civilians. Our paper reveals three findings: first, there is a stronger aversion among Taiwanese citizens to their own military casualties compared with those of their allies. Second, Taiwanese attitudes toward their own military casualties are more adverse than those incurred by enemy military. Lastly, Taiwanese support for military action diminishes more significantly with Chinese civilian casualties than with Taiwanese military losses.
https://doi.org/10.1177/07388942241290445 - First published online October 21, 2024
Ronan Tse-min Fu is an Assistant Research Fellow in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS). Prior to joining IPSAS, he was a Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of International and Public Affairs, with additional postdoctoral affiliations at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Department of Political Science, Columbia University.
Weiwen Yin is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Government and Public Administration, University of Macau. I received my Ph.D. degree from the Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, worked as an assistant professor at The Education University of Hong Kong, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program.
Professor Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration. His research interests include international relations of East Asia, China's relations with Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian politics, and ethnic politics in China. Professor Han received a Ph.D in Political Science from the George Washington University in the United States in 2010. Afterwards he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders' Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. In 2017, he was a fellow at the East Asia Institute in Seoul, South Korea. During 2021-2022, he was Lee Kong Chian Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia at the National University of Singapore and Stanford University. His research has been supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship and British Council/Newton Fund. Prior to HKU, Professor Han was Senior Lecturer in the International Security of East Asia at SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom.
Photo Credit: By Sgt. John J. Parry, USMC - http://www.marines.mil/units/hqmc/barracks/PublishingImages/20081103-M-8689P-003.JPGFuneral processing of General Robert H. Barrow, Marine Corps News - Photos - United States Marine Corps., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5185748
