『(Abstract)
The existing literature identifies natural resource wealth as
a major determinant of civil war. The dominant causal link is
that resources provide finance and motive (the “looting rebels”
model). Others see natural resources as causing “political Dutch
disease,” which in turn weakens state capacity (the “state capacity”
model). In the looting rebels model, resource wealth first increases,
but then decreases the risk for civil war as very large wealth
enables governments to constrain rebels, whereas in the state
capacity model, large resource wealth is unambiguously related
to higher risk of war. This research note uses a new dataset on
natural resource rents that are disaggregated as mineral and energy
rents for addressing the resources-conflict relationship. We find
that neither a dummy variable for major oil exporters nor our
resource rents variables predict civil war onset with a 1000-battle-death
threshold coded by Fearon and Laitin (2003) in the period after
1970 for which rents data are available. however, using a lower
threshold of 25 battle deaths, we find that energy wealth, but
not mineral wealth, increases the risk for civil war onset. We
find no evidence for a nonlinear relationship between either type
of resources and civil war onset. The results tentatively support
theories built around state capacity models and provide evidence
against the looting rebels model of civil war onset.』
Introduction
How does natural-resource wealth cause conflict?
A new measure of natural resource rents
Methods, variables, and rents
Conclusion
Acknowledgment
References