Poverty and Civil War Events

Håvard Hegre, Gudrun Østby and Clionadh Raleigh
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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

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2009, vol. 53, issue 4, 598-623

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.

Keywords: civil war; poverty; Liberia; disaggregated data; GIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:53:y:2009:i:4:p:598-623

DOI: 10.1177/0022002709336459

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