IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v39y2011i2p199-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War

Author

Listed:
  • Fearon, James D.
  • Laitin, David D.

Abstract

Summary In nearly a third of ethnic civil wars since 1945, the conflict develops between members of a regional ethnic group that considers itself to be the indigenous "sons of the soil" and recent migrants from other parts of the country. The migrants are typically members of the dominant ethnic group who migrate in search of land or government jobs, often supported by the state with economic incentives and development schemes. This paper elaborates on the concept of a sons-of-the-soil conflict; presents descriptive statistics and empirical patterns; identifies a typical escalation sequence; illustrates the several steps with an account of the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict along with other cases; discusses the obstacles to negotiated settlements; and concludes with a suggestion on the role of grievances in explaining civil war onsets.

Suggested Citation

  • Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2011. "Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 199-211, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:199-211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00203-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. James D. Fearon, 2004. "Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 41(3), pages 275-301, May.
    3. Cetinyan, Rupen, 2002. "Ethnic Bargaining in the Shadow of Third-Party Intervention," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(3), pages 645-677, July.
    4. Rashid, A. & Shaheed, F., 1993. "Pakistan: Ethno-Politics and Contending Elites," Papers 45, United Nations - Research Institute of Social Development.
    5. Fearon, James D, 2003. "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 195-222, June.
    6. Barbara F. Walter, 2006. "Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 313-330, April.
    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. Morelli, Massimo & Rohner, Dominic, 2015. "Resource concentration and civil wars," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 32-47.
    2. Casey Crisman-Cox, 2022. "Democracy, reputation for resolve, and civil conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(3), pages 382-394, May.
    3. Lars-Erik Cederman & Halvard Buhaug & Jan Ketil Rød, 2009. "Ethno-Nationalist Dyads and Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(4), pages 496-525, August.
    4. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    5. Jennings, Colin, 2012. "Rationalising ‘Irrational’ Support for Political Violence," SIRE Discussion Papers 2012-87, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    6. Michael Bleaney & Arcangelo Dimico, 2009. "Ethnic Diversity and Local Conflicts," Discussion Papers 09/04, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    7. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    8. Colin Jennings, 2012. "Rationalising ‘'Irrational'' Support for Political Violence," Working Papers 1212, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    9. Shanna A. Kirschner, 2010. "Knowing Your Enemy: Information and Commitment Problems in Civil Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(5), pages 745-770, October.
    10. Michaela Mattes & Burcu Savun, 2010. "Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 511-524, April.
    11. Enze Han & Joseph O’Mahoney & Christopher Paik, 2014. "External kin, economic disparity and minority ethnic group mobilization," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(1), pages 49-69, February.
    12. Casper Sakstrup, 2021. "What’s going on next door? Irregular leader change in neighboring countries, uncertainty, and civil war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 539-553, May.
    13. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    14. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    15. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    16. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    17. 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.
    18. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    19. Tilman Br�ck & Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp & Andrew Tedesco & Alexandra Avdeenko, 2013. "Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys," HiCN Working Papers 153, Households in Conflict Network.
    20. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.

    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:199-211. 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.