Lecture 5 Flashcards
Beyond Greed and Grievance Collier et al 2009
Beyond Greed and Grievance is the foundation for
serious quantitative analysis of civil war -> correlates of war project (COW)
what was the other purpose of Beyond Greed and Grievance
aim at analyzing the factors that may account for the onset of conflict (Collier and Hoeffler, Fearon and Laitin, Miguel et al)
Greed and Grievance hypothesis
what motivates a rebellion
feasibility hypothesis
where a rebellion is feasible, it will occur
traditional political analysis on civil war onset
root cause of civil war traced to historical grievance
modern economic theory
it focuses on the feasibility of rebellion as well as its motivation
machiavelli theorem
no profitable opportunity for violence would go unused
hypothesis 1 of collier 2009
factors that are important for the financial and militarily feasibility of rebellion but are unimportant for motivation decisively increase the risk of civil war
what does weinstein say about H1 for collier 2009
rather than motivation being independent to the feasibility of civil war, it may be determined by it
the two most obvious material conditions for rebellion
are financial and military
what contrasts Weinstein’s account for Collier
the grievance explanation which proposes that objective social exclusion explains civil war: grievance is only a subset of accounts based on motivation
what type of model does collier 2009 use
a logit regression
4 criteria for the COW definition of civil war
- there is organized military action and that at least 1000 battle deaths resulted in a given year
- there has to be effective resistance (distinct from genocides, massacres and pogroms)
- at least 5% of the deaths have been inflicted by the weaker party
- the national government at the time was actively involved
alternative measure to COW dataset
- based on armed conflict dataset
- consider type of violent conflict and level of violence
ten variables for war onset
- Ln GDP per capita
- Growth of GDP per capita
- primary commodity exports
- post cold war
- previous war / peace
- Former French African colony
- social fractionalization
- Proportion of young men
- Ln population
- geography
C2009 result for Ln GDP per Capita
- if the level of per capita income is halved from level, the risk is increased to 3.5%
C2009 result for Growth of GDP per capita
if the growth rate is increased by one percentage point, the risk of conflict decreases by 0.6 percentage points to 4.0%
C2009 result for PCE
there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between natural resources and conflict. The risk of dependence upon primary commodity exports is at its peak when exports is at its peak when exports constitute 25% of GDP
- provide opportunities for rebel predation
C2009 result for Previous war / Peace
a country only ten years post-conflict has a risk 14.2% and one that is 20 years post-conflict has a risk of 8.6%
C2009 result for Ln population
a doubling of population size increases the risk of civil war by only one fifth
C2009 result for social fractionalization
doubling social fractionalization from 18% to 36% for example raises the risk of conflict from 4.6-6.67%
C2009 result for former French African colony
the former French colonies of Africa had a risk of civil war that was less than a third of that which would otherwise have been predicted. They faced a risk 2.6%, while they would have suffered a civil war risk of 8.2% if they had had the same characteristics, but without being Francophone
C2009 result for proportion of young men
a doubling in the proportion of the population in this category increases the risk of conflict from 4.6 to 19.7%
C2009 result for mountainous terrain
taking the point estimate at face value, were Nepal flat its risk of civil war would have been 3.5% based on its other characteristics. Given that 67.4% of its terrain is mountainous, its risk 7%
level, growth, and structure of income
can be interpreted as either feasibility or motivation
francophone security guarantee
less military feasible: made rebellion more dangerous and less likely to succeed
proportion of young men
good proxy for proportion of the population psychologically predisposed to violence and best suited for rebel recruitment: again, it makes rebellion more feasible
mountainous areas
obvious safe haven for rebel: it increases military feasibility
criticism for collier hoeffler 2004
opportunity as an explanation of conflict risk is consistent with the economic interpretation of rebellion as greed-motivated
criticism for collier 2009
greed was operationalized with proxies for what they first called opportunities and now call feasibility and grievances were measured with secondary measures of democracy, economic growth, and ethnicity. These measures of grievance showed very little effect on propensity for civil war. This was a solid challenge to researchers accustomed to thinking that grievances were at the heart of civil war insurgencies
difference between collier and fearon
- collier finds less significance in GDP per capita
- collier measures growth more actively whereas Fearon does not
