Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 19:08:15 +0200
Beyond greed or grievance: understanding conflict in resource-rich states
– By Christoph Vogel and Joschka Havenith
Posted on
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/> April 17, 2014
Diamonds and Rubber in Sierra Leone, oil in
<http://africanarguments.org/2014/04/17/beyond-greed-or-grievance-understand
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Sudan, tantalum and gold in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, copper in
Zambia – the list of the natural resource wealth the Africa possesses is a
long one. However, these riches have not always been a blessing for the
continent. The development of African states is often said to be hindered by
a ‘resource curse’ and, not surprisingly, most contemporary instances of
armed contest over state power, authority, and legitimacy contain their fair
share of a ‘natural-resources’ story.
Civil Wars …and natural resources?
Intra-state conflicts usually turn out to be a ‘mess’ of intertwined,
related and opposing interests, strategies and actors. This has rarely been
more obvious than in the ongoing conflict in the Central African Republic
(CAR). What (officially) began in March 2013 as a coup to replace former
President François Bozizé and
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Michel Djotodia in office has since transformed from an armed contest over
state control to a full blown civil war
<http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/crisispreventionandrecover
y/projects_initiatives/responding-to-the-crisis-in-car/> displacing up to a
million people and killing an untold number of civilians. That is not to say
that greed motivated behaviour does not also
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in this conflict – there have been reports about
<http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/ARTJAWEB20131010084233/> Séléka
fighters trying to bring mining regions under their control.
Yet the mechanism that allowed this conflict to escalate seems to be a
‘classical’ security dilemma, which resulted in a spiral of violence and
counter violence. Instrumentalised by powerbrokers, this grievance
materialised
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line of religious division and identity in CAR, but corresponds with the
most basic human need: security. The escalation witnessed in recent months
is a result of the widespread violence the (officially disbanded) Séléka
fighters inflicted on the mostly Christian population. The subsequent
formation of the Anti-Balaka militias in reaction to the displacement,
extortion and killing of the affected population was the spark that
escalated the conflict to new heights.
With surprising speed, this conflict transformed its participants, thrust
new
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and discarded old ones, showing us again that
<http://africanarguments.org/2014/01/24/genocide-mongering-does-nothing-to-h
elp-us-understand-the-messy-dynamics-of-conflict-in-the-car-by-louisa-lombar
d/> one should be careful when choosing any single dominating paradigm in
order to explain intra-state conflicts. However, the role resources
sometimes (seem)
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led scholars, analysts, and commentators to jump on a bandwagon of economic
explanations. The
<http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-2355> work of
Oxford scholar Paul Collier became groundbreaking for this school of
thought. Based on large-scale quantitative research, he argues that ‘greed’
bears more explanatory power than ‘grievance’ to understand the onset and
duration of civil war.
Greed or grievance? Or both?
A closer look at underlying narratives and methodologies reveals serious
flaws. To give but one
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choice of proxy variables in order to frame the ‘greed’ paradigm is highly
questionable: In
<http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-2355> a seminal
analysis, Christopher Cramer of SOAS, for instance, revealed how the GINI
coefficient (indicating inequality) will generally correlate with government
defence spending and also the relative likelihood of armed conflict.
Collier’s model is also far from an example of causally stable argumentation
if you look at concrete case studies.
Notwithstanding the methodological weaknesses, the model made its way into
mainstream policy-making. Nowadays, the assumption that ruthless rebel
groups or predatory governments prey on natural wealth in order to feed
their war effort – or the oppression of their population –
<http://www.cgdev.org/publication/what%E2%80%99s-wrong-dodd-frank-1502-confl
ict-minerals-civilian-livelihoods-and-unintended> informs actual proceedings
in domestic as well as international politics.
But reality proves to be more complex than such a deterministic explanation.
While greed may be an explanation in some cases, it is another challenge to
identify the set of mixed or even contradictory motivations behind conflict
actors’ behaviour in relation to resources. A ‘blood diamond’ (a secondary
alluvial diamond) is often framed as the ‘rebel’s best friend’, since it is
easy to exploit by untrained and poorly equipped (forced) labour. This has
become common knowledge not only in parts of the scientific community but
within international policy discourse. The Kimberley Process (KP) operates
using the definition that “
<http://www.kimberleyprocess.com/en/kpcs-core-document> conflict diamonds
means rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance
conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments […].” Similar claims
form the basis of more recent due diligence efforts in the field of
tantalum, tin, and tungsten (the 3Ts).
The case of Zimbabwe’s diamonds
However credible the ‘blood diamond’ concept may be, it should be noted that
governments have come to recognise the popular wisdom about conflict
diamonds and often go to great lengths and
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considerable force to secure alluvial diamond fields. This might be one
possible explanation why the Zimbabwean authorities moved
<http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/diamonds_KP/Zimbabwe-Diamonds_and_clubs-eng
-June2010.pdf> into the Marange diamond fields so swiftly and brutally. In a
nation that abounds with internal grievances,
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to perceive the existence of these diamond fields not only as an economic
opportunity, but also as a political risk that has to be controlled,
<http://www.pacweb.org/images/PUBLICATIONS/Conflict_Diamonds_and_KP/18_Zimba
bwe-Diamonds_March09-Eng.pdf> torturing and killing many of the local
population and the non-local artisanal miners in the process.
The way both
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the security apparatus act has not only caused suffering for the local
population, but has led to the exacerbation of existing and new grievances.
This might prove a lot more problematic in the long run for state and
society cohesion. The Kimberly Process has, however, and with some
controversy, approved Zimbabwe to export its diamonds. This shows one
downside of ‘single-explanation’ reasoning based on quantitative analysis
when we talk about the (cor)relation between resources, conflicts and
rebel-centered explanations.
‘Conflict minerals’ in the Congo
Eastern Congo shows another, interesting pattern of interaction between
government, opposition groups, and civilian populations. Mineral resources
(in particular gold and the 3Ts) have played a key role in shaping conflict
and economic life in the country’s eastern provinces. In contrast to usual
narratives on so-called ‘conflict minerals’, the role of these minerals is
much more ambiguous. While it is true that various actors within
<http://www.christophvogel.net/mapping> a myriad of about 50 non-state armed
groups in eastern Congo prey on natural resource deposits, recent
observations show that most of these groups carefully navigate their way
through various income opportunities. Where mineral exploitation vanishes as
a source of revenue, armed groups adapt by focusing on
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such as taxation or trade in other commodities such as palm oil or
marijuana.
Government agents (army, police, or civilian administrations) in turn, are
heavily implicated in resource exploitation. Increasingly,
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2012.761602> this
happens within a fine-tuned civil-military interaction. While international
campaigns regularly focus on the oppression of civilians in such
arrangements, the latter
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great share of agency in the Congolese context. By creatively relying on
social leverage, e.g. through the
<http://www.gap.ugent.be/africafocus/pdf/08-21-2-KoenTim.pdf> production of
legitimacy and transformation of regulation on the basis of customary power
schemes, civilian actors have in many parts of eastern Congo secured a
strong influence on mineral exploitation.
Implications for policy-making
Quantitative analysis in the shape of the ‘greed and grievance’ paradigm
certainly has potential to inform our understanding of general tendencies
and inspire more focused analyses on specific cases. However, it is not
helpful in crafting a more nuanced understanding as to how natural resources
and armed conflict relate. Hence, in order to design specific policy,
broader quantitative studies always have to be supplemented by qualitative
research that focuses on the case in question. Only if this condition is met
will a true chance emerge to tailor appropriate policies in cases such as
the CAR, Zimbabwe, eastern Congo, or other places that grapple with the
complex problem of contests over state power and resource wealth.
Joschka Havenith is a researcher and consultant on governance and conflict
in Sub-Saharan Africa. He lectures at the
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Cologne.
Christoph Vogel is a PhD researcher at University of Zurich. He blogs at
<http://www.christophvogel.net> www.christophvogel.net and tweets at
<http://www.twitter.com/ethuin> www.twitter.com/ethuin.
<http://africanarguments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CongoIDPs-e139773059
1834.jpg> War against M-23 Rebels
<http://africanarguments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CongoIDPs-e139773059
1834.jpg> War against M-23 Rebels
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