IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v39y2011i2p188-198.html

Riding the Ever-Rolling Stream: Time and the Ontology of Violent Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Graham K.
  • Langer, Arnim

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the ways in which the passage of time is dealt with in econometric studies of violent conflict and civil war with empirical attention to the dynamics of ethnic conflict. We argue that the mainstream approach to econometric studies of civil war is based on a time-invariant ontology and that this is not an appropriate or adequate way of capturing the causal patterns of violent conflict. Based analysis of replication datasets using structural break analysis and rolling windows, we show how careful attention to the passage of time reveals important macro-historical changes in the coefficients on ethnic diversity in explaining conflict incidence. We conclude that econometric studies of civil war need to pay more careful attention to the limitations on the generalizations that they draw through attention to the passage of time and better iteration with qualitative and historical studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Graham K. & Langer, Arnim, 2011. "Riding the Ever-Rolling Stream: Time and the Ontology of Violent Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 188-198, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:188-198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00205-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2003. "Religious polarization and economic development," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 201-210, August.
    2. Hegre, Håvard, 2001. "Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 33-48, March.
    3. 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.
    4. repec:qeh:qehwps:qehwps98 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Davis, Richard A. & Lee, Thomas C.M. & Rodriguez-Yam, Gabriel A., 2006. "Structural Break Estimation for Nonstationary Time Series Models," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 223-239, March.
    6. Scott Gates & Håvard Hegre & Mark P. Jones & Håvard Strand, 2006. "Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800–2000," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 893-908, October.
    7. Arnim Langer, 2005. "Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Group Mobilization in Cote d'Ivoire," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 25-45.
    8. José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2002. "Why ethnic fractionalization? Polarization, ethnic conflict and growth," Economics Working Papers 660, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2002.
    9. Doyle, Michael W. & Sambanis, Nicholas, 2000. "International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(4), pages 779-801, December.
    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. Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005. "Ethnic diversity and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 293-323, April.
    12. Cederman, Lars-Erik & Girardin, Luc, 2007. "Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 173-185, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2009. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875578, December.
    2. Abu-Bader, Suleiman & Ianchovichina, Elena, 2019. "Polarization, foreign military intervention, and civil conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. José G. Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2005. "Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 796-816, June.
    4. Matija Kovacic & Claudio Zoli, 2021. "Ethnic distribution, effective power and conflict," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 257-299, August.
    5. Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2007. "Ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4192, The World Bank.
    6. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    7. 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 littérature en expansion]," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    8. Giménez-Gómez, José-Manuel & Zergawu, Yitagesu-Zewdu, 2018. "The impact of social heterogeneity and commodity price shocks on civil conflicts," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 959-997.
    9. Cervellati, Matteo & Sunde, Uwe & Valmori, Simona, 2011. "Disease Environment and Civil Conflicts," IZA Discussion Papers 5614, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. 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 littérature en expansion]," CERDI Working papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    11. Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2010. "Ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 123-143, April.
    12. Marie-Anne Valfort, 2007. "Containing ethnic conflicts through ethical voting? Evidence from Ethiopia," HiCN Working Papers 35, Households in Conflict Network.
    13. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    14. Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005. "Ethnic diversity and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 293-323, April.
    15. Giménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel), 2016. "Linking social heterogeneity and commodity price shocks to civil conflicts," Working Papers 2072/290744, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    16. Mehmet Gurses & Nicolas Rost, 2013. "Sustaining the peace after ethnic civil wars," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(5), pages 469-491, November.
    17. Tim C. Wegenast & Matthias Basedau, 2014. "Ethnic fractionalization, natural resources and armed conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(4), pages 432-457, September.
    18. Ragnhild Nordås, 2014. "Religious demography and conflict: Lessons from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 146-166, June.
    19. Indra de Soysa & Synøve Almås, 2019. "Does Ethnolinguistic Diversity Preclude Good Governance? A Comparative Study with Alternative Data, 1990‐2015," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 604-636, November.
    20. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:188-198. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    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.