Globalization, Democratization, and the Prospects for Civil War in the New Millennium

Globalization and Political Violence, 1970–2008

“…Just as dependency theorists challenged the benign nature of the capitalist world system (Conteh-Morgan 2004) in earlier times, the current globalization debate mirrors earlier debates in many ways (Apter 2008;Mason 2003). While many of the large arguments about global transformation and social peace are "structuralist" in terms of large processes reminiscent of historical Marxist arguments, there are also many specific mechanisms linking globalization to conflict that are identified by skeptics from disparate disciplines that are important to the larger discussions.…”

“…For others, globalization is nothing more than the dominance of the rich and powerful through exploitative capitalism now spreading over every corner of the globe, where peace when it comes is an imposition from above through violence and repression, leading to exploitation and resistance of various forms (Barkawi 2006;Devetak and Hughes 2008;Martell 2010). Indeed, the Zapatista revolt in the state of Chiapas in the south of Mexico is often discussed as a classic case of resistance to globalization because the rebels made it an explicit rallying cry (Mason 2003).…”

Economic Globalization and Civil War

“…Lastly, civil wars entail opportunity costs that should be higher for rich states (e.g., income that rebels could earn in the labor force, fighting expenses that could be utilized for growth). Development, therefore, should deter rebellions, thus promoting peace (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Mason 2003; World Bank 2002, 2003).…”

Economic Liberalization via IMF Structural Adjustment: Sowing the Seeds of Civil War?

“…have been removed, or at least greatly lowered, by national governments+ Although economists have developed a number of comparative measures of openness, political scientists have tended to rely on readily available data about the external sector as a means of 2+ See, for example, Walton and Seddon 1994;Ellis-Jones 2003;andParis 2004+ 3+ See Esty et al+ 1999;de Soysa 2002;Fearon and Laitin 2003;Hegre, Gissinger, and Gleditsch 2003;Mason 2003; Barbieri and Reuveny 2005;and Bussmann and Schneider 2007+ 4+ A number of these studies cover approximately the same time period, use the same estimation technique~probit!, and some even employ the same data set~Fearon and Laitin 2003!, thus lessening the potential impact of these factors on the lack of robustness of the findings+ 5+ Another way of thinking of this problem is as a selection issue+ It may be the case that countries with particular characteristics or that face certain conditions may be more likely to select into or undertake a process of liberalization+ Those characteristics or conditions may also have an impact on the likelihood of civil war breaking out in those countries+ See Vreeland 2003, for a discussion of issues associated with selection+ operationalizing economic liberalism+ 6 The most commonly used indicator in studies of the relationship between economic openness and civil war has been the trade dependency ratio~defined as the sum of a state's total annual imports plus exports, divided by its gross domestic product~GDP! !, although measures of FDI and foreign portfolio investment~FPI!…”

“…The fact that the same measures of economic openness-trade dependency ratios, FDI, and FPI-have been used to test hypotheses that posit very different types of relationships between openness and civil war is one indication of the challenges scholars have confronted in their efforts to measure economic liberalism+ 10 Of even greater concern is the fact that these indicators are not good proxies for the conflictreducing or conflict-inducing processes at the core of analysts' hypotheses+ Scholars use trade dependency ratios, for example, as a means of measuring the openness and efficiency of economies integrated into the global economic system+ Countries can distort trade significantly, however, and still have a high trade dependency ratio+ 11 This implies that countries with relatively similar trade dependency ratios may actually perform quite differently where trade distortion and welfare enhancement are concerned+ Those governments that enact policy measures that reduce the costs of trade liberalization for some groups thus can minimize the number of losers created by this process who may otherwise be motivated to initiate armed conflict against the state+ Many of the models of the economic liberalization-civil conflict relationship that scholars have produced are also likely to suffer from endogeneity bias+ 6+ Edwards 1998 provides an overview of a number of the indices of openness developed by economists+ 7+ Collier andHoeffler 2004+ 8+ See Fearon andLaitin 2003;Mason 2003;andBarbieri andReuveny 2005+ 9+ See McDonald 2004;and Barbieri and Reuveny 2005+ 10+ The trade openness measure has also been used as a proxy for a variety of other concepts that researchers hypothesize have an influence on conflict, including governance, degree of state control of the economy, and the size of the state's security forces+ See de Soysa 2002; and Barbieri andReuveny 2005+ 11+ Edwards 1998+ Trade-distorting measures that can coexist with high trade dependency ratios include the use of export subsidies+ Endogeneity bias occurs when one or more independent variables is correlated with the error term+ 12 If an independent variable acts as a proxy for the unexplained or unobserved factors that have been subsumed into the error term, we cannot interpret its estimated coefficient as the effect of that regressor since the latter also captures part of the effect of omitted or mismeasured variables+ The potential for endogeneity bias arises in our study because not all countries are equally "at risk" of participating in IMF structural adjustment programs+ If the factors that influence IMF program participation are not randomly distributed across the population of countries, then the error terms associated with our efforts to account for the selection by countries into IMF programs and the onset of civil wars will be correlated+ A significant correlation suggests that the same unaccounted-for factors that influence selection into IMF programs also have an impact on the onset of civil war+ 13 One potential unobserved factor that may play a role in selection and the onset of intrastate war is the degree of legitimacy a government enjoys among its citizens+ Governments pe...…”