A theory of regional conflict complexes

Arthur Silve and Thierry Verdier

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Civil conflicts spill over into neighboring countries. This paper proposes a theory of the contagion of civil wars. Weak territorial control facilitates the emergence of a regional market for war inputs in the "porous frontier." The contagion effect is nonlinear and creates multiple equilibrium situations of regional complexes of civil conflicts. This helps explain the observed patterns of regional clustering of conflict and institutional quality, and raises identification issues in the measurement of the contagion effect. We also derive a positive spillover of civil wars: governments are sometimes in a position to avoid contagion by improving their institutions. Finally, we explore the policy implications for military intervention, and military and institutional cooperation.

Keywords: Civil war; Contagion; Porous frontier Institutions Military intervention Institutional cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Journal of Development Economics, 2018, 133, pp.434 - 447. ⟨10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.03.002⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: A theory of regional conflict complexes (2018)
Working Paper: A theory of regional conflict complexes (2018)
Working Paper: A theory of regional conflict complexes (2018)
Working Paper: A theory of regional conflict complexes (2017)
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:hal:journl:halshs-01887066

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.03.002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().