Insurgency and credible commitment in autocracies and democracies

Philip Keefer

No 4185, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.

Keywords: Population Policies; Parliamentary Government; Economic Theory&Research; Social Conflict and Violence; Politics and Government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dev and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Insurgency and Credible Commitment in Autocracies and Democracies (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4185

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