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Cohesive Institutions and Political Violence

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  • Fetzer, Thiemo

    (University of Warwick)

  • Kyburz, Stephan

    (Center for Global Development)

Abstract

Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict? Are cohesive institutions better in managing distributive conflicts? We study these questions exploiting exogenous variation in revenue disbursements to local governments together with new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria. We make three contributions. First, we document the existence of a strong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the actual resource. Second, we show that distributive conflict is highly organized involving political militias and concentrated in the extent to which local governments are non-cohesive. Third, we show that democratic practice in form having elected local governments significantly weakens the causal link between rents and political violence. We document that elections (vis-a-vis appointments), by producing more cohesive institutions, vastly limit the extent to which distributional conflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the available rents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data.Keywords: conflict, ethnicity, natural resources, political economy, commodity prices. JEL Classification: Q33, O13, N52, R11, L71

Suggested Citation

  • Fetzer, Thiemo & Kyburz, Stephan, 2018. "Cohesive Institutions and Political Violence," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 377, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:377
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jacob N. Shapiro & Oliver Vanden Eynde, 2023. "Fiscal Incentives for Conflict: Evidence from India's Red Corridor," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 217-225, January.
    3. Marie A. Yeh & Meike Eilert & Aphrodite Vlahos & Stacey Menzel Baker & Tony Stovall, 2021. "Toward a “human being to commodity model” as an explanation for men's violent, sexual consumption of women," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 911-938, September.
    4. Jean Lacroix, 2023. "Ballots Instead of Bullets? The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Political Violence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 764-813.
    5. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2019. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1220, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    6. Dominic Rohner, 2022. "Conflict, Civil Wars and Human Development," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 22.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    7. Mueller,Hannes Felix & Techasunthornwat,Chanon, 2020. "Conflict and Poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9455, The World Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    conflict; ethnicity; natural resources; political economy; commodity prices. jel classification: q33; o13; n52; r11; l71;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q33 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Resource Booms (Dutch Disease)
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • N52 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • L71 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels

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