Doing Well Out of War: An Economic Perspective by Paul Collier (Summary)
The information presented below are excerpts directly from the reading. Enjoy!
Economic
agendas appear to be central to understanding why civil wars start; conflicts
are far more likely to be caused by economic opportunities than by grievance
If
economic agendas are driving conflict, then it is likely that some groups are benefiting from conflict and that these groups have some interest in
initiating and sustaining it
A useful
conceptual distinction in understanding the motivation for civil war is that
between greed and grievance
Successful
rebel organizations place considerable emphasis on good public relations with
the international community
Narratives
of grievance play much better with the international community than narratives
of greed; by playing upon a sense of grievance, the organization may be able to
get new recruits more cheaply
Even
where the rationale at the top of the organization is essentially greed, the
actual discourse may be entirely dominated by grievance
Primary
commodity exports are likely to be a goof proxy for the availability of
lootable resources; it can also be highly profitable because it is based on the
exploitation of idiosyncratic natural endowments rather than more competitive
levels of manufacturing: production can survive predatory taxation
Rebel
narratives of grievance are focused on one or more of four factors: 1) raw
ethnic or religious hatred, economic inequality, a lack of political rights,
government economic incompetence
The
presence of primary commodity exports massively increases the risks of civil
conflict; a country heavily dependent on primary commodity exports with a
quarter of its national income coming from them, has a risk of conflict four
times greater than one without primary commodity exports
A country
with large natural resources, many young men, and little education is very much
more at risk of conflict than one with opposite characteristics
The true
cause of civil war is not the loud discourse of grievance but the silent force
of greed
Civil
wars create some opportunity for profit that are not available during times of
peace: 1) life during civil war tends to be less predictable 2) there is likely
to be an increase in criminality; governments reduce expenditure on the police
during conflict as the increase spending on the military. As a result, the
risks of punishment for criminal behavior decline 3) markets during civil war
become disrupted 4) the scope for rent-seeking predation on trade increases for
rebels and may even increase for government officials as their actions become
less open to scrutiny
The rebels
will do well through predation on primary commodity exports, traders will do
well through widened margins on goods they sell to consumers, criminals will do
well through theft, and opportunistic businessmen will do well at the expense
of those businesses that are constrained to honest conduct
If some
people do well out of civil war, they may not be particularly concerned to
restore peace
Reducing the
incentives for conflict
To the
extent that is possible to curtail the sales of primary commodities that are
financing conflict the prospects for peace are increased
A further
way in which the international community can reduce the risks generated by primary
commodity exports is to assist in the diversification of the economics of those
societies that are most at risk—developmental assistance is the instrument for this
Substantial
developmental assistance is only available during peacetime conditions so that
its role is preventative, whereas the control of marketing channels may also be
able to influence the incentives for settling current conflicts
Policy should
be focused on making markets as competitive as possible; competition will
reduce profits to normal levels and reduce the attraction of conflict for
wartime traders
Crime
thrives on low detection and poor justice systems. The rehabilitation of the
police and the courts is thus a post-conflict priority, partly to ease problems
of contract enforcement.
The causes
of conflict points to economic factors as the main drivers of conflict
The combination
of large exports of primary commodities, low education, a high proportion of
young men, and economic decline drastically increases risks; greed seems more important
than grievance
Effective
policy should reduce both the economic incentives for rebellion and the
economic power of the groups that tend to gain from the continuation of social
disorder
The restriction
of access to international commodity markets for illegitimate exports from
countries in conflict, and the targeting of development assistance to high-risk
countries not currently in conflict, are both feasible strategies for the
international community
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