New directions in conflict research from an economics perspective - Conflicts Over Natural Resources in the Global South - page 36

comity of nations would preclude war, implying a confederation amongst such nation
states ( foedus pacificum ). Kant's notion of cosmopolitanism is also applicable within
nation states. Both thinkers were concerned with mechanisms that would engender
peace. In other words, peace has to be achieved through deliberate design; this is what
Galtung (1964) described as the negative peace (the absence of war).
Within nation states, civil war is only one manifestation of large-scale violent
conflict. It is important to emphasise that civil 'war' involves the direct participation
of the state and military style confrontations. Since the end of the cold war, conflict
research has been dominated by the study of civil war in developing countries and in
the former Soviet bloc. One of the factors that contribute to the gestation of many
of these civil wars is natural resources, an issue that becomes central to the causation
of civil wars in a variety of guises. These include the violent contestation of valuable
natural resource rents, normally restricted to minerals, fuels and narcotic substances.
The loss of local control over resource rents and resource use (to central government
and the forces of globalisation) is often an important source of the grievances that
breed conflict. Also, population growth and climate change can induce neo-Malthusian
factors leading to the scarcity of land, forests and water resources for agriculture,
forestry or pastoral activities may ignite internal conflict (Homer-Dixon 1999).
The discourse on the nature of civil war has gradually evolved into a discussion
of development or state failure, depending upon the disciplinary or political stance of
the interlocutors. Coinciding with this, there has been a growing proclivity on the part
of Western governments and international organisations to become directly involved
in conflict affected developing countries after the demise of the cold war, and the
associated undermining of Westphalian state sovereignty.
The number of armed conflicts peaked in 1991, when 52 wars occurred in 38
countries. By 2007, however, this number had declined to 34 wars in 25 countries
(Gleditsch 2008). Likewise, associated conflict fatalities are also declining. There is
one caveat, the number of Muslim countries experiencing civil war as a proportion of
all countries in civil war is rising. Civil (and inter-state) war incidence is on the wane,
but other forms of violent conflict may be rising, and these do not always involve the
state as a direct participant.
For example, violence associated with democratic transitions in many parts of the
developing world is still rife. It has been found that the risk of conflict is higher during
transitions from an autocratic to a democratic system and vice versa than in long-
standing and established autocracies or democracies (Hegre et al. 2001). Although
there has been a marked shift towards democracy in most developing countries since
the end of the cold war, and most have adopted the multi-party electoral system to form
governments, they still lack adequate constraints on the executive and their electoral
systems are fraught with imperfections. We might, therefore, better describe these states
as anocracies as opposed to democracies. An anocracy has characteristics of both
democracy and autocracy; most developing countries fall into this category, raising
conflict risk, as will be seen from the discussion below.
Secondly, the losers of increased globalisation, which widens the gulf between the
'haves and have nots', sometimes transform their protests into violent insurgencies.
Rapid globalisation, especially in the form of increased international trade and inward
foreign investment has increased income differences between skilled and unskilled
workers all over the world (Mamoon and Murshed 2008), and income inequality