Civil war risk in democratic and non-democratic neighborhoods

Clionadh Raleigh

No 4260, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This study questions the extent to which domestic conflict is influenced by national, regional, and international relationships. It is designed to answer specific questions relating to the effects of neighboring characteristics on a state's risk of conflict and instability: What is the interaction between neighboring conflict and political disorder? Do democratic neighborhoods have different conflict trajectories than non-democratic neighborhoods and if so, where and why? Given that most poor countries are located in poor and conflictual neighborhoods, to what extent is there a relationship between poverty and political disorder in different regime neighborhoods? Using spatial lag terms to specify neighboring regime characteristics and multilevel models to differentiate between explanatory levels, this study reiterates the importance of domestic and neighboring factors in promoting or diminishing the risk of instability and conflict. However, the pronounced negative effects of autocratic and anocratic neighborhoods are mitigated by a growing domestic GDP. This study also finds that democratic neighborhoods are more stable, regardless of income level. Research presented here is unique in its contribution on how regime type is a significant development indicator, which in turn is salient in determining the risks of civil war across states.

Keywords: Peace&Peacekeeping; Population Policies; Services&Transfers to Poor; Social Conflict and Violence; Post Conflict Reintegration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/wps4260.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4260

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().