IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0417.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ethnic Cleansing or Resource Struggle in Darfur? An empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Olsson, Ola

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Siba, Eyerusalem

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

The con‡ict in Darfur has been described both as an ethnic cleansing campaign, carried out by the Sudanese government and its allied militias, and as a local struggle over dwindling natural resources between African farmers and Arab herders. In this paper, we construct a theoretical framework for understanding the choice between ethnic cleansing and resource capture and use a previously unexploited data set on 530 villages in Southwestern Darfur to analyze the determinants of attacks in the region. Our results clearly indicate that Janjaweed attacks have been targeted at villages dominated by the major rebel tribes, resulting in a massive displacement of those populations. Resource variables, capturing access to water and land quality, also have some explanatory power but are not consistently significant. These patterns suggest that attacks in the area had ethnic cleansing as a primary objective.

Suggested Citation

  • Olsson, Ola & Siba, Eyerusalem, 2009. "Ethnic Cleansing or Resource Struggle in Darfur? An empirical analysis," Working Papers in Economics 417, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/21525
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ola Olsson, 0. "After Janjaweed? Socioeconomic Impacts of the Conflict in Darfur," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(3), pages 386-411.
    2. Jean-Paul Azam & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 39(4), pages 461-485, July.
    3. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    4. Olsson, Ola & Siba, Eyerusalem, 2013. "Ethnic cleansing or resource struggle in Darfur? An empirical analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 299-312.
    5. Mathias Czaika & Krisztina Kis-Katos, 2009. "Civil Conflict and Displacement: Village-Level Determinants of Forced Migration in Aceh," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 46(3), pages 399-418, May.
    6. Andre, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-47, January.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    8. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    9. Ola Olsson & Heather Congdon Fors, 2004. "Congo: The Prize of Predation," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 41(3), pages 321-336, May.
    10. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    11. David M. Drukker, 2002. "Bootstrapping a conditional moments test for normality after tobit estimation," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 2(2), pages 125-139, May.
    12. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    13. S. Mansoob Murshed & Scott Gates, 2005. "Spatial–Horizontal Inequality and the Maoist Insurgency in Nepal," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 121-134, February.
    14. Grossman, Herschel I & Kim, Minseong, 1995. "Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1275-1288, December.
    15. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    16. D. James Greiner & Donald B. Rubin, 2011. "Causal Effects of Perceived Immutable Characteristics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 775-785, August.
    17. John Bellows & Edward Miguel, 2006. "War and Institutions: New Evidence from Sierra Leone," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 394-399, May.
    18. Verwimp, Philip, 2005. "An economic profile of peasant perpetrators of genocide: Micro-level evidence from Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 297-323, August.
    19. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    20. Do, Quy-Toan & Iyer, Lakshmi, 2007. "Poverty, social divisions, and conflict in Nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4228, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. De Luca, Giacomo & Sekeris, Petros G. & Spengler, Dominic E., 2018. "Can violence harm cooperation? Experimental evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 342-359.
    2. Thoenig, Mathias & Eberle, Ulrich J. & Rohner, Dominic, 2020. "Heat and Hate: Climate Security and Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 15542, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Hufschmidt, Patrick & Ume, Chukwuma Otum, 2023. "Conflicts and political intervention: Evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria," Ruhr Economic Papers 1009, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    4. Rademakers, Robbert & van Hoorn, André, 2021. "Ethnic switching: Longitudinal evidence on prevalence, correlates, and implications for measuring ethnic segregation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    5. Ashton Wiens & Henry B. Lovejoy & Zachary Mullen & Eric A. Vance, 2022. "A modelling strategy to estimate conditional probabilities of African origins: The collapse of the Oyo Empire and the transatlantic slave trade, 1817–1836," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(3), pages 1247-1270, July.
    6. Ola Olsson, 2016. "Climate Change and Market Collapse: A Model Applied to Darfur," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, March.
    7. Olsson, Ola & Siba, Eyerusalem, 2013. "Ethnic cleansing or resource struggle in Darfur? An empirical analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 299-312.
    8. Ola Olsson, 0. "After Janjaweed? Socioeconomic Impacts of the Conflict in Darfur," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(3), pages 386-411.
    9. Olsson, Ola & Valsecchi, Michele, 2010. "Quantifying Ethnic Cleansing: An Application to Darfur," Working Papers in Economics 479, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Nils Hägerdal, 2019. "Ethnic Cleansing and the Politics of Restraint: Violence and Coexistence in the Lebanese Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(1), pages 59-84, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    2. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    3. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    4. Singh, Prakarsh, 2011. "Impact of terrorism on investment decisions of farmers: evidence from the Punjab insurgency," MPRA Paper 33328, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    6. Achim Ahrens, 2015. "Civil conflicts in Africa: Climate, economic shocks, nighttime lights and spill-over effects," SEEC Discussion Papers 1501, Spatial Economics and Econometrics Centre, Heriot Watt University.
    7. Cervellati, Matteo & Sunde, Uwe & Valmori, Simona, 2011. "Disease Environment and Civil Conflicts," IZA Discussion Papers 5614, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ola Olsson, 0. "After Janjaweed? Socioeconomic Impacts of the Conflict in Darfur," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(3), pages 386-411.
    9. Mitra, Anirban & Mitra, Shabana, 2020. "Redistribution of Economic Resources due to Conflict: The Maoist Uprising in Nepal," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 578-604.
    10. Dominic Rohner, 2010. "From rags to rifles: deprivation, conflict and the welfare state," IEW - Working Papers 463, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," CERDI Working papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    12. Horatiu A. Rus, 2012. "Environmental Depletion, Governance, and Conflict," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(4), pages 1305-1332, April.
    13. Gudrun Østby, 2013. "Inequality and political violence: A review of the literature," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 206-231, June.
    14. Bhattacharya, Prasad Sankar & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Rahman, Habibur, 2023. "Does credit availability mitigate domestic conflict?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    16. Ana María Ibá-ez, 2014. "Growth in forced displacement: cross-country, sub-national and household evidence on potential determinants," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 13, pages 350-387, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Ola Olsson, 2016. "Climate Change and Market Collapse: A Model Applied to Darfur," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, March.
    18. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    19. Issifou, Ismael, 2017. "Can migration reduce civil conflicts as an antidote to rent-seeking?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 333-353.
    20. Rafat Mahmood & Michael Jetter, 2020. "Communications Technology and Terrorism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(1), pages 127-166, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ethnic cleansing; resource struggle; Darfur;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.