Mining Competition and Violent Conflict in Africa: Pitting Against Each Other

Anouk Rigterink, Tarek Ghani, Juan Lozano and Jacob Shapiro
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Anouk Rigterink: Durham University
Tarek Ghani: Washington University St. Louis
Juan Lozano: Princeton University
Jacob Shapiro: Princeton University

Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers from Empirical Studies of Conflict Project

Abstract: Explanations for the well-established relationship between mining and conflict interpret violence near resource extraction sites as part of conflict over territory or government. We provide evidence that competition between artisanal and industrial miners is also an important source of natural resources related conflict, from qualitative case studies at mining sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe and a large-N analysis. For the latter, we use machine learning to estimate the feasibility of artisanal mining across the continent of Africa based on geological conditions. We find the impact of price shocks on violent conflict is roughly three times as large in locations with industrial mining where artisanal mining is feasible as it is in places with industrial mining but no potential for artisanal mining. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that 31 to 55% of the observed mining-conflict relationship is due to violent industrial-artisanal miner competition. This implies new avenues for conflict-mitigation.

Keywords: Democratic Republic of Congo; Zimbabwe; DRC; Civil War; Insurgency; Terrorism Violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 L72 Q34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:esocpu:35

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