Government Religious Preference and Intrastate Conflict

Eduard van der Merwe (), Carolyn Chisadza and Matthew Clance
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Eduard van der Merwe: Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa

No 202124, Working Papers from University of Pretoria, Department of Economics

Abstract: Understanding the causes and consequences of conflicts continues to be an important contribution to the economic development literature, particularly the mechanisms that can reduce civilian deaths. We contribute to understanding attacks on civilians and the spillover effects by analysing the impact of government religious preference on civilian deaths. Using panel data analysis for 113 countries for the period 1989 to 2015, wefind that a higher government preference towards religion causes more civilian deaths for countries experiencing intrastate conflict. Furthermore, we analyse this effect by the different types of conict and find that the results are driven by both state-based and non-state-based conflicts. Lastly, a regional analysis shows that the negative impact of a strong preference towards religion from the government is particularly notable for countries in Africa and Asia.

Keywords: conflict; religion; government religious preference; civilian deaths (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 H56 O10 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
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