Citation

Wagner HR. Ethnopolitics 2005; 4(2): 237-246.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17449050500147283

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Some scholars have argued that expectations of humanitarian military intervention might actually increase the incidence of intrastate violence, and have invoked the concept of moral hazard from the economics literature on insurance and government regulation to explain why. However, the term ‘moral hazard’ is no substitute for a careful analysis of how expectations of intervention might influence the decisions made by participants in intrastate conflicts. I argue that an analysis of those decisions implies that the prospect of intervention might indeed make violence more likely, but for reasons that have little to do with what is commonly called moral hazard.