Causes of civil war

1. UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST
Institute For Development Studies
PDS 804s
Sociology And Economics Of Conflicts
TOPIC:
Economic And Political
Causes Of Civil Wars In Africa
BY PROF. JOHN C. ANYANWU

2. NAMES INDEX NUMBERS
MWINSIGTENG CORNELIUS MWINBOBRA..................... SS/PDS/14/0006
ADAMTEY EBENEZER……………………………………… SS/PDS/14/0029
AKPARIBO AMINU…………………………………………… SS/PDS/14/0034
AHMED REGINA……………………………………………… SS/PDS/14/0038
DOWUONA-ANIM JOYCE…………………………………… SS/PDS/14/0039
MENSAH ATTO EDWARD…………………………………... SS/PDS/14/0011
OHENE-AMOH CHARLES………………………………… SS/PDS/14/0035
GROUP 4

3. INTRODUCTION

4. • Civil war has become the prime form ofCivil war has become the prime form of
violence globally.violence globally.
• Africa is the most conflict ridden regionAfrica is the most conflict ridden region
of the Worldof the World
• Out of the 78 war outbreaks between
(1960-1999) 40 (or 51.28 percent)
occurred in Africa.
AFRICA AND CIVIL WARAFRICA AND CIVIL WAR

5. In this paper, the author investigated
the causes of civil war:
Whether civil wars in Africa have
Economic and political causes.

6. Civil war is defined as an internal war in
which:
Military action was involved,
The national government at the time
was actively involved,
CIVIL WAR
(Singer and Small, 2004)

7.  Effective resistance –
• weaker to the stronger force
• occurred on both sides,
 At least 1,000 deaths resulted in the
conflict Per Year.

8. THE THEORY OF
CIVIL WAR
OUTBREAK

9. Using the following six variables to explain
the onset of civil war in Africa:
•GDP per capita growth rate.
•The amount of Natural resources.
•Peace duration.
•Democracy.
•Social fractionalization.
•Population size.
LOGIT MODELS

10. • Civil wars have Economic and
Political causes based on the.
• They manifest in:
• Greed (Loot seeking) and
• Grievance (Justice seeking)
COLLIER-HOEFFLER THEORY

11. GREED (LOOT SEEKING)
Desire for private gain:
•Sell weapons to groups
•Opportunity for extortion from civilian
•To implement a system of gov’t
•Get rid of an enemy
•Loot natural resources

12. JUSTICE SEEKING/ GRIEVANCES
•Ethnic dominance
•Poor economic condition
•High inflation
•Income inequality
•Ruined hopes after transition
•Unfulfilled promises
•High unemployment
•Currency depreciation
•Discrimination

13. LE BILLON’S TYPOLOGY
• The risk of civil war increases as
natural resources also increases.
• The risk decreases as the
opportunity cost of rebellion
increases.
• Rebellion may occur when forgone
income is low as compared to MpCI

14. COLLIER AND HOEFFLER (2001)
• Points out another dimension of
opportunity for civil war- weak
government.
• Social cohesion- ethnic and religious
diversity in the country tends to
reduce onset of civil war.

15. THE THEORY OF HEGRE, ET AL (2001)
• They emphasis on the importance
of political stability and its impact on
the outbreak of civil war.
• The level of democracy has a
bearing on the onset of civil war.

16. METHODOLOGY AND DATA

17. THE DATA FOR THE STUDY
•The primary data (1960-1999) on 161
countries organized in five-year panels
of 8.
•Secondary data mainly drawn from
Sorli (2002) as a modification of Collier
and Hoeffler (2002).
•Pooled logit model of 6 variables.

18. The basic model is:
Pr(WARSA 1960-1999)=
f (E, D, P, R, S, A),
Where E denotes economic variables
(GDP per capita and GDP growth
rate).
D denotes demographic variables
(population size and geographic
dispersion).
THE METHOD/ MODEL

19. P means the political variables (peace
duration, minimum democracy and
transition).
R denotes resources (primary
commodity exports to GDP ratio and its
squared term).
S denotes socio-cultural variables
(caused by social fractionalization and
ethnic dominance), and
A denotes Sub-Saharan Africa.

20. THE HYPOTHESIS

21. Pr(WARSA) 1960-1999 - Based on the above
specification, they tested three key hypotheses:
H1: Economic development (GDP per
capita, GDP growth rate, primary
commodity exports GDP ratio and its
squared term) is significantly and
negatively associated with civil war
onset in Africa)

22. H2: Democracy should reduce the onset
of civil war in Africa. Also political
transition has proximate cause of civil
war in Africa.
H3: Ethnic fractionalization should be
significantly associated with civil war
onset in Africa. Both high and low levels
of fractionalisation can reduce the onset
of civil war in Africa.

23. RESULTS OF THE STUDY

24. EMPIRICAL RESULTS
H1: Economic development is associated with civil
war onset in Africa.
It was discovered that war episodes
were preceded by lower growth rates.
The presence of natural resources
(proxied by primary exports-GDP ratio)
seems to provide easily “lootable”
assets for “loot-seeking”

25.  This result is consistent with
evidence that the lower the rate of
growth, the higher is the probability
of unconstitutional political change
(Alesina et al, 1996)
 With respect to demographic
variables, the data shows that war is
likely in Africa countries with larger
populations.

26.  Increases in war outbreak were
partly due to rebel responses to
financial opportunities in Africa
contrary to the findings of Collier and
Hoeffler (2000, 2001, 2002).
 They accepted the hypothesis that
economic development is
significantly associated with the
onset of civil war in Africa.

27. H2: Democracy should reduce the onset of civil war
in Africa.
 Democracy is clearly significant and
negatively associated with civil war
onset in Africa (Elbadawi and
Sambanis (2002)
 Lengthy peace duration reduces
grievance and war episodes.

28.  Democracy shows to be an
important explanatory variable, and
yields strength to a more traditional
“grievance-based” and liberal
peace-rooted explanation of civil
war.
 Thus, they accept the hypothesis
that democracy reduces the onset
of civil war in Africa.

29. H3: Ethnic fractionalization should be associated
with civil war onset in Africa.
 The data suggests that social
fractionalization is important to
peace.
 That social cohesion enhances
opportunity for peace.
 Ethnic dominance is more common
in peace episodes than in war
episodes.

30.  There is a positive association
between ethnic dominance and civil
war in Africa.
 Africa is characterized by high
degree of religious and ethnic
fractionalization.
 Civil war arises because fewer
African societies are characterized
by ethnic dominance.

31.  This means that cohesion is effective
for social fractionalization which
makes a society greatly safer.
 They accepted the hypothesis that
ethnic fractionalization is significantly
and negatively associated with civil
war onset in Africa.

32. GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

34. CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION

35. THE POLICY IMPLICATION
To prevent conflict situations in African
countries.
There must be the combination of:
•Economic diversification,
•Poverty reduction
•Population reduction,
•Political reforms

36. CRITIQUE
 Democratic nations in Africa are not
always more peaceful.
 Some countries in Africa do not have
much natural resources but engage
in civil war.

37. The pace of political reforms toward better
governance and improved political rights
should be accelerated in Africa given that the
results have shown that democracy is useful
tool to reduce conflicts.
Economic dev must be complemented by
political dev. and liberalization to attain an
amplified effect of PEACE in Africa.
CONCLUSION