『Abstract
Throughout the 1990s, many armed groups have relied on revenues
from natural resources such as oil, timber, or gems to substitute
for dwindling Cold War sponsorship. Resources not only financed,
but in some cases motivated conflicts, and shaped strategies of
power based on the commercialisation of armed conflict and the
territorialisation of sovereignty around valuable resource areas
and trading networks. As such, armed conflict in the post-Cold
War period is increasingly characterised by a specific political
ecology closely linked to the geography and political economy
of natural resources. This paper examines theories of relationships
between resources and armed conflicts and the historical processes
in which they are embedded. It stresses the vulnerability resulting
from resource dependence, rather than conventional notions of
scarcity or abundance, the risks of violence linked to the conflictuality
of natural resource political economics, and the opportunities
for armed insurgents resulting from the lootability of resources.
Violence is expressed in the subjugation of the rights of people
to determine the use of their environment and the brutal patterns
of resource extraction and predation. Beyond demonstrating the
economic agendas of belligerents, an analysis of the linkages
between natural resources ad armed conflicts suggests that the
criminal character of their inclusion in international primary
commodity markets responds to an exclusionary form of globalisation;
with major implications for the promotion of peace.
Keywords: Armed conflict; Dependence; Natural resources; Political
ecology; War』
Introduction
Scarcity, abundance, and the political ecology of resource-linked
armed conflicts
Resource dependence and vulnerability to armed conflict
Resource conflictuality and risk of armed conflict
Resource lootability and opportunities in armed conflicts
A typology of resource-linked armed conflicts
Resources and violent state control
Resources and violent secession
Inclusion, exclusion and criminalisation
Impeding peace
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References