 Food Resources and Strategic ConflictOre Koren Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2019, vol. 63, issue 10, 2236-2261 Abstract: A growing number of studies draw linkages between violent conflict and food scarcities. Yet, evidence suggests that within states, conflict revolves around food resources abundance. I develop an explanation for how the competition over food resources conditions the strategic behaviors of three actors: rebels, civilian producers who grow crops, and state forces. Using a statistical-strategic model, I validate my theory at the subnational level on new high specificity spatial data on staple crop access and productivity in Africa for the years 1998 to 2008 (and use the estimates to forecast conflict on out-of-sample data for 2009 to 2010). In line with theoretical expectations, local variations in food productivity have a positive, statistically significant, and substantive effect on the strategic behaviors of different actors. These findings suggest that the imperative for food denial as a microlevel tactic in civil war should be more seriously incorporated into the work of scholars and policy makers. Keywords: asymmetric conflict; civil wars; conflict; expected utility; internal armed conflict; rebellion; resource extraction; natural disasters (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:63:y:2019:i:10:p:2236-2261 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International) |
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