CONFLICT Syed Mansoob Murshed ISS-Erasmus University & - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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INEQUALITY AND INTERNAL CONFLICT Syed Mansoob Murshed ISS-Erasmus University & Coventry University, UK Murshed@iss.nl Murshed, WIDER, 17 September 2015 1 INTERNAL CONFLICT AND UNDER-DEVELOPMENT This topic has received a great deal

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Syed Mansoob Murshed ISS-Erasmus University & Coventry University, UK Murshed@iss.nl

INEQUALITY AND INTERNAL CONFLICT

1 Murshed, WIDER, 17 September 2015

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INTERNAL CONFLICT AND UNDER-DEVELOPMENT

Murshed, WIDER, 17 September 2015 2

 This topic has received a great deal of

attention recently:

 Development Community

 Conflict Perpetuates Poverty.  Poverty makes civil war more likely

 Strategic Studies Community post cold war

 Failed States  Complex Humanitarian Crises: military interventions

and refugee influxes

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Poverty Alleviation State Building

Murshed, WIDER, 17 September 2015 3

Ergo

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Causes of Conflict

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Aristotle’s Politics 21st Century Avariciousness Greed or opportunity State’s Incompetence Weak State Capacity Inequality Grievance

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GREED: Collier and associates

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 A Motivation akin to Banditry

 Desire to control Natural Resource Exports

 Found not to be robust to different

definitions of natural resource dependence

r abundance

 Better at predicting conflict duration  Focus should be on lootable resources:

il/gas and alluvial diamonds

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Greed: Poverty-Conflict Trap

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 Nuanced version of greed:

 Contextualised to where poverty is endemic,

because:

 Poverty makes soldiering a less unattractive

livelihood strategy  Civil war perpetuates poverty and vice versa

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Weak State Capacity

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 The State’s Ability to:

 Coerce: forcefully deter rebellion  Cajole: Provide Security and Public Goods

 The above require resources; otherwise

security and public goods are ‘privatised’.

 Civil war may hamper state fiscal capacity

 Weak fiscal institutions  Reliance on aid and resource rents  Low tax/GDP ratio

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Murshed, WIDER, 17 September 2015 8

Both greed and weak state capacity arguments ignore

 Grievance producing INEQUALITY and

DISCRIMINATION. WHY?

 Empirical: Data on between group

inequality (not just socio-economic class) is hard to come by and therefore ignored.

 Theoretical: Grievances are infinite,

ubiquitous and omnipresent. Rebellion has to be feasible and financially viable.

 Argued earlier by Charles Tilly as

mobilization theory.

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Nature of Inequality

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 Would not matter if there is no uncertainty

and a level playing ground for life chances.

 Good Inequality (of outcome):

 Human beings are incentivised by rewards

and punishments; ergo, too much inequality can discourage effort (not always pecuniary).

 BAD Inequality:

 Categorical-Durable Inequalities (Charles

Tilly)

 Inequalities of Opportunity (John Roemer)

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Bad Inequalities are hard to Shift:

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 What is harder to shift?

 Income Inequality  Or an inequality based upon systematic

discrimination of a group

 Inequalities of Opportunity

 Disadvantaged socio-economic background  Employment discrimination: race, religion,

ethnicity

 Political exclusion of certain ethnicities

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Two Non-Mutually exclusive Developments in Economics

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 The Economics of Identity  Behavioural Economics

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Individual and Group Identity

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 Individuals identify with groups

 If their group is disadvantaged even if the

individual is not

 They act according to group norms:

 In some circumstances errant individuals can

be brought back to conformity with group norms, particularly in closely knit poor communities

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Behavioural Economics:

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 An individual’s preferences are not

exclusively innate, but are a product of life experiences, history and a variety of psycho-social phenomena

 People dislike ultimata  Prefer fairness even if personally worse off

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Conflict and Inequality

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 Individuals may choose to participate in

group causes, and even fight.

 What is salient in this regard? Two

concepts:

 Relative Deprivation (Ted Gurr): individuals

who are left behind

 Horizontal Inequality (Frances Stewart):

inequalities between groups based on ethnicity, caste, class, religion

 Economic dimension  Political dimension

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Growth and Inequality

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 Growth can increase both poverty and

inequality, as is common now.

 Although average income rises poverty can

rise because it is so unequally distributed. Inequalities of opportunity intensify

 Growth can reduce poverty but raise

inequality

 Some countries reduce both (Brazil

recently)

 Truly pro-poor growth reduces both

inequality and poverty

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Globalisation and Conflict

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 Increased globalisation (more international

trade) worsens the distribution of income

 Policies to foster globalisation (increased

inward investment, say) can lead to wage compression

 Both the above can cause relative

deprivation if say the income share of the top 10% rise at the expense of the bottom 40%.