How long will a conflict last?

1. How long will a conflict last? • Buhaug, Gates, and Lujala (2009) paper • Depends on different factors • How long the military has to travel to project its power • How close is an international border • How rough is the terrain • How much valuable natural resources • Conflicts that occur away from state centers last longer • Access to international border makes it twice as durable • Rough terrain offers better defensive positions for militarily inferior groups • Terrain also provides nontangible qualities such as symbolic values tied to identity and cohesion • This provides support and “soldiers” to the rebellion

2. Why weak conflicts last longer • Rebels avoid large encounters with state troops and employ guerilla tactics. Difficult to uproot rebel groups. • Small, weak rebel group does not pose credible threat to survival of government. Government unwilling to accommodate their demands. • Accommodating rebel demands may set precedent for other groups to take up arms as well. • Rebels reluctant to lay down arms for fear of reprisals.

3. Consequences of Conflict

4. 1. lower social spending • Police expenditure: increased by 200% between 1997/98 and 2001/02 • Expenditure on social and economic services decreased to fund increasing security expenditures • Poor populations suffer even more, grievances arise

5. Secessionist Conflicts • Governments reallocate to punish (Northern Mali) • Governments reallocate to reward (Southern Senegal) • Aid agencies make matter worse in conflict situations • They paid off rebels in Sierra Leone for passage through their roadblocks • Unintentionally provided security to armed Rwandan groups to regroup in camps in Goma • Provided material resources to Malian Tuaregs by supporting refugee camps in Mauritania • Aid agencies have also been criticized for not doing enough in conflict situations • It is clear that the criticism is more about their lack of understanding of the political economy of the conflict and their own interventions

6. 2. Decreased Economic Activities • High insecurity caused • low expansion of industries • frequent closures of businesses • restriction in movement of goods and services • Threat to security of life and property • Loss of confidence in the economy • Production suffered, trade suffered, income suffered

7. Civil War and Macro-economy • Murdoch and Sandler’s 2004 research • Within country civil war • 35-year economic growth reduced by 30% • 5-year economic growth reduced by 85% • Nearby civil war • 35-year economic growth reduced by 10% • 5-year economic growth reduced by 20% • Economic damage is less in the long-run because countries are able to recover in the long term

8. Civil War and Households • Deininger’s 2003 research • Reduce private investment • Economic activities will be concentrated in subsistence farming and herding • many Nepalis migrated overseas for work • Capital formation reduced • Asset accumulation likelihood reduced by 14 percentage points • Entrepreneurship discouraged • Likelihood of establishing or expanding non-farm non-livestock enterprise reduced by 10 percentage points • Increases the likelihood by 2 percentage points that such enterprises will be abandoned

9. Civil War and Economic Growth

10. 3. Human Development Challenges • The State is unable to respond to market failures • Absence of sustainable financing scheme to expand cost intensive services • Inadequate supply of human resources to expand health and education services. • Remote health posts do not have doctors and communities have corrupted local VDC budget to pay locally hired teachers’ salaries. • Inability to contract out services to non-state providers • Lack of trust on other providers, internal corruption • Inability to translate scarce resources to improve governance and accountability

11. 4. Public Service Delivery failure • Under normal circumstances • Natural process, urban demand for labor met by rural supply • Under conflict • Rapid process • More labor supply than necessary • Urban wages are depressed (demand-supply graph) • Rural wages increase • But, low labor supply in rural areas due to security issues • Out-country migration for jobs • Rural economy destroyed • Government is unable to adequately provide public services such as education, healthcare, roads, drinking water, sewage