Transcript OLD and NEW WARS

CONTEMPORARY VIOLENT
CONFLICT
S Mansoob Murshed
Institute of Social Studies, the
Netherlands and the University of
Birmingham, UK
[email protected]
Slide 1: Types of internal violence
against/by the state




Genocide: is a systematic attempt to physically
eliminate a particular ethnic, religious or linguistic
group. They may be correlated to significant income
inequalities between groups.
Secessionist Wars: refer to areas struggling to
separate from the centre, usually containing sons of
the soil dynamics. These wars have the longest
duration on an average.
Revolutions: attempts to overthrow the state by
armed force. They can be sub-divided into
 coups d'etat: short duration
 Rebellions against the state, for example the
Maoist insurgency in Nepal, Colombia, Peru.
Internationalised Conflict: when neighbouring
countries or other external powers are involved.
Slide 2: The Duration of Civil Wars



The number of countries embroiled in a civil
war increased up to 1994, and has since
declined (Hegre, 2004).
But the average duration of civil wars,
standing at 16 years in 1999, does not exhibit
a downward trend (Fearon, 2004).
The number of fatalities in civil war may be
declining recently, but the numbers of
refugees and internally displaced persons is
rising.
Slide 3: Causes of Civil War


Cold war and super-power rivalry.
Are civil wars rational?


Cannot really be, as negotiated settlements
are superior.
Bounded versus universal rationality.


4
Pre-meditated acts.
Rational Choice: Civil wars over natural
resources or collective grievance.
Slide 4: Civil wars over natural
resources or collective grievance



Collier and Hoeffler: Greed
(opportunities) disguised as grievance
(constraints).
Stewart: Horizontal inequality.
Ethnicity:


powerful organising principle for collective
action.
Resolves collective action problems.
Slide 5: Grievance and
horizontal inequality
o
Discrimination in Public Spending and Taxation.
o
o
o
o
o
6
Discrimination in the allocation of public spending
Discrimination in the allocation of public
employment
over taxation of smallholders encourages
insurrection
discrimination in access to schooling, health care,
and public-sector jobs.
Where there are inter-group fiscal transfers,
commitment to the transfer by those in power
may be imperfect. This lack of credibility of the
transfer can eventually lead to civil war.
Slide 6: Grievance (2)

High Asset Inequality.


7
Agrarian societies with high income
inequality—for example El Salvador,
Guatemala, Nepal, the Philippines, and
Zimbabwe—have high asset inequality, and
are very prone to conflict.
Asset redistribution such as land reform to
lessen inequality is more difficult than
public finance reform.
Slide 7: Grievance (3)

Economic Mismanagement and
Recession.

8
Economic mismanagement is often
associated with an uneven and unfair
distribution of the burdens of subsequent
adjustment.
Slide 8: Greed: Natural
Resource Wars



Collier and Hoeffler (2004) find empirical
evidence that a relatively high dependence
on primary commodity exports is associated
with conflict. This finding is not robust as a
cause of civil war, see Ross (2004).
Natural resources constitute 'booty' and this
has been used to emphasise the greed
motivation for civil war.
Lootable, obstructable mineral resources are
not the initial cause of the start of civil wars,
but once started these wars tend to persist
for a long time, as the rents from these help
to finance war are a source of profit.
Slide 9: Saliency of the
typology of the Economy

Point Source Economies:
these refer mainly to mineral exporting
economies. Included are coffee/cocoa and crops
that lead to the production of illegal substances
such as heroin and cocaine. Such commodities are
closely linked to civil war, as some are readily
lootable (alluvial diamonds, drugs say) or
obstructable (oil pipelines for example).
 Oil, in particular, is found to cause civil war, and
lootable commodities are found to help perpetuate
civil war (Ross, 2004).
10

Slide 10: Typology of the
economy (2)


Diffuse Economies: these countries principally
export agricultural commodities other than
those enumerated above. According to Ross
(2004) these economies are not
systematically linked to civil war, but despite
this there are many examples of diffuse
economies in civil war, Sri Lanka, Burundi,
Rwanda.
Manufacturing Economies: these countries
export mainly manufactured goods. These
economies have enjoyed the best economic
growth rates since 1980, as well as having
some of the best institutions in the
developing world.
Slide 11: Although the greed
versus grievance debate may be
a useful entry point for debate.
The origin of the conflict is
immaterial if there are viable
dispute settling and resource
sharing mechanisms.
Slide 12: Call it the Social
Contract




Viable dispute settlement mechanisms.
Viable sharing mechanisms
Perceptions of fairness
Institutional functioning




Colonial legacies
Institutions degenerate
Or are they deliberately undermined to facilitate
kleptocracy.
State failure
13
Slide 13: Summary on Causes


greed and grievance are inextricably
intertwined; no matter which comes first the
other is sure to follow.
Cross-sectional versus country case studies
 Cross-sectional econometric studies yield different
results depending on model specification, datatype, country coverage.
 But one thing that is always robustly present is
that low per-capita always significantly adds to
the risk of conflict.
 Country-case studies find that grievance or
horizontal inequality is more important, by
looking at gaps in (human) development across
communities and regions.
Slide 14: Summary of causes
(2)


Low per-capita income explains risk of conflict best,
because it is a proxy for institutional failure.
Only a risk and not certainty. Conflict requires
triggers



Conflict-Poverty nexus, Collier et.al (2003)



Internal
External
Poverty adds to risk of conflict
Conflict perpetuates poverty
Democracy and Conflict (Hegre et. Al.)


15
Both autocracies and democracies have a low conflict risk
Transitions between one form to another are associated with
high conflict risk
Slide 15: Why are peace treaties so
difficult to sustain? Most civil wars
lead to outside powers trying to
broker peace.
1. Incentive to renege on a peace deal
due to short time horizons


Impatience to consume
High discount rates for the future
2. Indivisibilities.
Slide 16: Peace is not easy to
achieve
A peace agreement is robust if it is self
enforcing, when sides believe that the
post-war pie that they expect is greater
than the value of continued fighting.
 The value of compromise declines with
indivisibilities, and also in the presence
of spoilers with a more pessimistic view
of peace.
17
