13. Conflict and development Flashcards
Between WW2 and 2015 how many interstate and civil conflicts were there?
22 Interstate conflicts and 240 civil conflicts
Between WW2 and 2015 how many deaths resulted from interstate conflicts?
3-8 million
Between WW2 and 2015 how many deaths resulted from civil conflicts?
5-10 million
Where have the majority of recent conflicts been?
Africa and Asia have accounted for the majority of recent conflicts
Are civil wars relevant for development?
The vast majority of current and recent civil wars are taking place in low-income countries. There are clear correlations between conflict and key indicators of development
Give a statistic about the ‘bottom billion’ relating to conflict?
Countries in the bottom billion face a risk of 1/6 of falling into civil war in any 5-year period
How have children in low-income countries been effected by conflict?
They account for 77% of children not in primary school, 70% of infant deaths and 65% of people without access to safe drinking water
What is a good case study of the impact of conflict?
Burundi and Burkina Faso
Describe the case of Burundi
In Burundi, extreme violence broke out in the 1990s between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups and it lost two decades of income growth setting GDP back to 1970 levels. In that time, despite being relatively even until the violence broke out, Burkina Faso now has a GDP per capita more than 2.5 times that of Burundi
What are the causes of civil conflict?
- Conflict declines with economic development
- Conflict is created by inequality
- Conflicts in developing countries are based on ethnic differences
What are the two counter-acting effects which might link economic development to conflict?
Economic growth creates a larger pot to fight over - rapacity, but at the same time, it raises the opportunity cost to fighting
What did Lei and Michaels (2014) find?
The discovery of large oilfields raises the odds of a country experiencing civil conflict by 5-8%
What did Dube and Vargas (2013) find?
Guerrilla attacks on oil producing municipalities in Columbia increased when the international price of oil rose
What do Miguel et al (2004) find?
They find that a 5% negative growth shock increases the likelihood of a civil war in the following year by nearly 1/2
Is conflict driven by inequality?
The evidence remains quite limited however with a recurrent observation that conflict appears to be quite low for both low and high values of inequality
How may inequality be more accurately reflected than in civil conflict measures?
The dominant form of rich/poor struggle may be more akin to Marxian social unrest, strikes demonstrations etc rather than armed civil war as the poor don’t typically have the means
Between which groups does conflict often occur?
Economically similar groups (Ray and Esteban, 2017)
Why does conflict between similar groups often occur?
Often related to scarce resources:
- A limited pool of jobs
- Scarce farming and grazing land
- The same customers
What are the impacts of conflict between similar groups?
The losing group can be excluded from the sector in which it directly competes with the winners
Are ethnic differences the main driver of war?
Recent conflicts in developing countries have often been organised along ethnic lines however the real reason may be to gain access to resources
Give an example that shows ethnic differences may not be the main motivator of war?
Mitra and Ray (2014) find that what outwardly appears to be religious conflict between (poorer, minority) Muslims and (majority) Hindus in India is linked strongly to changes in relative incomes
How does Hindu-muslim conflict in India change with Muslim per capita income?
Violence in India inccreases with a rise in Muslim per capita income, and falls with increases in Hindu per capita income - rapacity and opportunity cost
When we think of conflict, what two factors are the most important to consider?
Rapacity and opportunity cost
Why could colonisation be considered a motivator of conflict today?
The splitting up of ethnic groups across countries. Europeans completely ignored pre-colonial ‘states’: ethnic territories. Today 80% of African borders follow latitudinal or longitudinal lines and many others follow natural geographies such as rivers
