On economic causes of civil war

Abstract

We investigate whether civil wars have economic causes. The model is based on utility theory, rebels will conduct a civil war if the perceived benefits outweigh the costs of rebellion. Using probit and tobit models the propositions are tested empirically. Four variables, initial income, ethno-linguistic fractionalisation, the amount of natural resources, and initial population size are significant and strong determinants of the duration and the probability of civil wars. One important finding is that the relationship between civil wars and ethnic diversity is non-monotonic; highly fractionalised societies have no greater risk of experiencing a civil war than homogenous ones. Population: population data for 1960 was obtained from the World Bank 'World Data' CD-ROM (SP POP TOTL). Ethnolinguistic Fractionalisation Index (ELF): Index as used by Mauro (1995). This variable measures the probability that any two citizens will be drawn from a different ethno-linguistic group. The variable is re-scaled so that complete homogeneity scores zero and maximum fragmentation scores 100.

Decentralisation and conflict in Uganda

“…Indeed, it is no coincidence that the debate in the Parliament prior to the creation of new districts on 20 July, 2005, was about the further addition of nine ethnic groups to this list, leading to one MP complaining, 'let us not start creating tribes like we are going to create districts' (Parliament of Uganda Hansard, 20 July, 2005 ' (EA 8/7/2002) has led to the increased salience of ethnicity in local politics as various ethnic groups claim their own districts. Similarly, despite evidence that a majority of new districts do not result in an ethnic group changing from minority to majority status in either the new or the 'mother' district (Green 2008), it is clear that the creation of new districts has reduced what were once ethnically heterogeneous districts to ones largely populated by only one or two major ethnic groups, a state of affairs identified as potentially dangerous by numerous scholars of civil wars (Collier andHoeffler 1998, De Soysa 2002). Four examples of how the creation of new districts has led to local level ethnic conflict should suffice to demonstrate the pervasiveness of this phenomenon.…”

Can Africa Reduce Poverty by Half by 2015?

“…5 The sustainability of growth and persistence of poverty There is abundant empirical research trying to explain Africa's poor economic performance. A wide range of factors have been identified, from macroeconomic instability (caused by external or domestic shocks) to a set of initial conditions, such as geography (Sachs and Warner, 1997), ethnic fractionalisation and conflict (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998), 'bad' policies (Sachs and Warner, 1997;Easterly, 2000), poor governance (Barro, 1997), weak institutions (Acemoglu et al, 2003;Rodrik et al, 2002), and low human capital. Recently, Sachs et al (2004) have argued that there are three types of poverty traps in Africa: the savings trap, the demographic trap, and the low capital-threshold trap.…”

Ashes of co-optation: from armed group fragmentation to the rebuilding of popular insurgency in Myanmar

“…44 To be sure, economic factors have also featured in older literature that highlighted socio-economic marginalization as a cause of civil wars. 45 Yet, to Edward Azar this is only part of the equation as the 'real sources of conflict -as distinct from features -are deep-rooted in the lives and ontological beings of those concerned.'…”

“…47 By contrast, post-Cold War scholars have increasingly viewed rebel groups as war entrepreneurs and depicted their political agendas as little more than smoke-screens for opportunistic rent-seeking. 48 Since then Paul Collier's famous proposition that present-day insurgency is motivated by economic "greed" rather than political grievances, 49 has been criticized on theoretical, methodological, and normative grounds. 50 While this article cannot dwell at length upon this debate, it is important to note that more recent quantitative research has refuted Collier's founding argument, showing that grievances -if measured differentlyare indeed a major driver of civil wars.…”

“…At a time when insurgency is more often framed as a criminal business network than a revolutionary enterprise, 3 the underlying logic of altering the cost-benefit calculus of rebels in favour for peace by overriding political grievances with economic opportunities seems appealing.…”