13. Conflict and development

Question 1

Between WW2 and 2015 how many interstate and civil conflicts were there?

Answer 1

22 Interstate conflicts and 240 civil conflicts

Question 2

Between WW2 and 2015 how many deaths resulted from interstate conflicts?

Answer 2

3-8 million

Question 3

Between WW2 and 2015 how many deaths resulted from civil conflicts?

Answer 3

5-10 million

Question 4

Where have the majority of recent conflicts been?

Answer 4

Africa and Asia have accounted for the majority of recent conflicts

Question 5

Are civil wars relevant for development?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Give a statistic about the ‘bottom billion’ relating to conflict?

Answer 6

Countries in the bottom billion face a risk of 1/6 of falling into civil war in any 5-year period

Question 7

How have children in low-income countries been effected by conflict?

Answer 7

They account for 77% of children not in primary school, 70% of infant deaths and 65% of people without access to safe drinking water

Question 8

What is a good case study of the impact of conflict?

Answer 8

Burundi and Burkina Faso

Question 9

Describe the case of Burundi

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What are the causes of civil conflict?

Answer 10

1. Conflict declines with economic development
2. Conflict is created by inequality
3. Conflicts in developing countries are based on ethnic differences

Question 11

What are the two counter-acting effects which might link economic development to conflict?

Answer 11

Economic growth creates a larger pot to fight over - rapacity, but at the same time, it raises the opportunity cost to fighting

Question 12

What did Lei and Michaels (2014) find?

Answer 12

The discovery of large oilfields raises the odds of a country experiencing civil conflict by 5-8%

Question 13

What did Dube and Vargas (2013) find?

Answer 13

Guerrilla attacks on oil producing municipalities in Columbia increased when the international price of oil rose

Question 14

What do Miguel et al (2004) find?

Answer 14

They find that a 5% negative growth shock increases the likelihood of a civil war in the following year by nearly 1/2

Question 15

Is conflict driven by inequality?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

How may inequality be more accurately reflected than in civil conflict measures?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Between which groups does conflict often occur?

Answer 17

Economically similar groups (Ray and Esteban, 2017)

Question 18

Why does conflict between similar groups often occur?

Answer 18

Often related to scarce resources:
- A limited pool of jobs
- Scarce farming and grazing land
- The same customers

Question 19

What are the impacts of conflict between similar groups?

Answer 19

The losing group can be excluded from the sector in which it directly competes with the winners

Question 20

Are ethnic differences the main driver of war?

Answer 20

Recent conflicts in developing countries have often been organised along ethnic lines however the real reason may be to gain access to resources

Question 21

Give an example that shows ethnic differences may not be the main motivator of war?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

How does Hindu-muslim conflict in India change with Muslim per capita income?

Answer 22

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

Question 23

When we think of conflict, what two factors are the most important to consider?

Answer 23

Rapacity and opportunity cost

Question 24

Why could colonisation be considered a motivator of conflict today?

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Give a statistic that shows how the African population is fractured?

Answer 25

Around 43% of the African population lives in ethnic territory that is intersected by a national border

Question 26

How is violence different for partitioned ethnic groups?

Answer 26

-The incidence, severity and duration of political violence are all higher for partitioned ethnicities
- They also experience more frequent military interventions from neighbouring countries and conflict spillover
- Split ethnicities are often entangled in a vicious cycle of government led discrimination
- Members of partitioned ethnicities have fewer household assets, poorer access to utilities and worse educational outcomes, as compared to individuals from non-split ethnicities

Question 27

How does conflict impact upon economic growth?

Answer 27

• Direct and indirect costs

Question 28

What are the direct costs of conflict?

Answer 28

• Loss of life of a substantial share of the working age labour force
• Destruction of physical capital/ assets (no cattle left in Northern Uganda after LRA insurgency)
• Uncertainty makes many economic activities less/non-profitable
• Instability and uncertainty greatly undermines domestic and foreign investment

Question 29

How does civil war impact growth according to Collier (2008) [statistic]?

Answer 29

7 years of civil war reduces GDP per capita by 15%

Question 30

What are the indirect costs of civil conflict?

Answer 30

• Disease - forced migration and life in refugee camps increase the spread of disease and mortality dramatically
• Food insecurity - Malnutrition and stunting in Uganda (Bridges and Scott, 2021)
• Lost schooling and human capital
• Poverty - in Rwanda, 20% of the population moved into poverty follwing the 1994 genocide

Question 31

How did levels of bombing in Vietnam compared to other conflicts?

Answer 31

More firepower was unleashed during the Vietnam war than during any other conflict in human history, with huge humanitarian and economic cost

Question 32

What did evidence from US bombing in Laos find?

Answer 32

A negative and significant impact of bombings on expenditure and poverty rates. Even 50 years after the conflict ended bombed regions are found to be both poorer today and growing more slowly

Question 33

What is a conflict trap?

Answer 33

If there exists a causal relationship between poor economic growth and conflict in both directions, countries may become stuck in a ‘conflict’ trap Collier et al (2003)

Question 34

What percentage of post-war countries revert back to conflict?

Answer 34

40% of post-war countries revert back to conflict within a decade

Question 35

Can foreign aid help with conflict?

Answer 35

May support investment, one paper found that a 10% increase in aid to African countries reduced future conflict risk by 6%

Question 36

What other actions are likely to be effective at resolving or preventing civil conflict?

Answer 36

• Good institutions
• Addressing commitment problems
• Regional or global actors resolving conflict

Question 37

Give some statistics as to how conflict impacts health?

Answer 37

During the civil was in Mozambique, the under 5 mortality rate was nearly 1 in 4

Question 38

Who is worst effected by conflict and why?

Answer 38

Initially more men die, but women are worse impacted as it diminishes their access to health, school welfare services and education. Maternal mortality is often very high in conflict impacted areas (3% in the DRC)

Question 39

How does government spending on health change during a war?

Answer 39

Government spending on health falls by 8.6% according to the IMF

Question 40

Give some statistics in the destruction of wealth?

Answer 40

One study found that 1/10 of a country’s wealth may leave during a conflict. The total cost of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka was 2x that of it’s annual GDP

Question 41

How does education spending change during conflict?

Answer 41

Spending falls by 4.3% per person per year

Question 42

What are the 3 main causes of conflict?

Answer 42

• Horizontal inequalities
• Natural resources for basic needs
• Struggle to control exportable natural resources

Question 43

What are horizontal inequalities?

Answer 43

Inequalities among culturally defined groups

Question 44

How can conflict be resolved?

Answer 44

• Good institutions
• Commitment devices
• Global actors
• Focis on education