IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v53y2009i4p598-623.html

Poverty and Civil War Events

Author

Listed:
  • HÃ¥vard Hegre

    (Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) Department of Political Science,University of Oslo International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO))

  • Gudrun Østby

    (Department of Political Science, University of Oslo Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO))

  • Clionadh Raleigh

    (Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) Department of Political Science Trinity College Dublin)

Abstract

This article examines the link between subnational poverty and the location of civil war events. Drawing on the ACLED dataset, which breaks internal conflicts down to individual events at the local level, we take a disaggregated approach to the study of conflict. Local-level socioeconomic data are taken from the Liberian Demographic and Health Survey. With geographical cells of approximately 76 km 2 as units of analysis, we test how absolute and relative welfare affect the presence and number of conflict events during the 1989-2002 Liberian civil war. We control for neighboring conflict events, distance to Monrovia and national borders, population density, diamond deposits, and ethnic affiliations. War events were more frequent in the richer locations. This may provide better support for “opportunity†explanations than for “relative deprivation†theories of conflict, but we argue that the relative weakness of the Liberian government makes it difficult to distinguish between the two.

Suggested Citation

  • HÃ¥vard Hegre & Gudrun Østby & Clionadh Raleigh, 2009. "Poverty and Civil War Events," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(4), pages 598-623, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:53:y:2009:i:4:p:598-623
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002709336459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002709336459
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002709336459?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
    2. 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.
    3. repec:qeh:qehwps:qehwps16 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    5. 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.
    6. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    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 Juan, Alexander, 2012. "Mapping Political Violence – The Approaches and Conceptual Challenges of Subnational Geospatial Analyses of Intrastate Conflict," GIGA Working Papers 211, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    2. Philip Arena & Brian Hardt, 2014. "Incentives to Rebel, Bargaining, and Civil War," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 127-141, January.
    3. Stijn van Weezel, 2017. "Mostly Harmless? A Subnational Analysis of the Aid-Conflict Nexus," Working Papers 201728, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    4. Yuri M. Zhukov, 2014. "Theory of Indiscriminate Violence," Working Paper 365551, Harvard University OpenScholar.

    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. 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.
    2. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    3. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Kazeem B. Ajide & Olorunfemi Y. Alimi, 2021. "Income inequality, human capital and terrorism in Africa: Beyond exploratory analytics," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 165, pages 218-240.
    5. Kazeem B. Ajide & Juliet I. Adenuga & Ibrahim D. Raheem, 2020. "Natural resource rents, political regimes and terrorism in Africa," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 162, pages 50-66.
    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 littérat," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    8. Justino, Patricia & Martorano, Bruno, 2018. "Welfare spending and political conflict in Latin America, 1970–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 98-110.
    9. Solveig Hillesund, 2022. "To fight or demonstrate? Micro foundations of inequality and conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(2), pages 166-190, March.
    10. MAYSTADT, Jean-François, 2007. "Does inequality make us rebel? A renewed theoretical model applied to South Mexico," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2007081, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    11. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Bruno Emmanuel Ongo Nkoa & Honoré Tekam Oumbé & Georges Ngnouwal Eloundou & Thierry Asngar Mamadou, 2022. "Impact of access to electricity on internal conflicts in Africa: Does income inequality matter?," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 395-409, September.
    15. Jean-François Maystadt, 2008. "Does inequality make us rebel? A revisited theoretical model applied to South Mexico," HiCN Working Papers 41, Households in Conflict Network.
    16. Bertinelli, Luisito & Cömertpay, Rana & Maystadt, Jean-François, 2025. "Ethnic diversity and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from refugee-hosting areas," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    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. Alexander De Juan & Jan H. Pierskalla, 2015. "Manpower to coerce and co-opt—State capacity and political violence in southern Sudan 2006–2010," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(2), pages 175-199, April.
    19. Bhattacharya, Prasad Sankar & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Rahman, Habibur, 2023. "Does credit availability mitigate domestic conflict?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    20. Matthew Wells, 2016. "Casualties, regime type and the outcomes of wars of occupation," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(5), pages 469-490, November.

    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:sae:jocore:v:53:y:2009:i:4:p:598-623. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.