Ressourcenkonflikte ohne Ende?: Zur Politischen Ökonomie afrikanischer Gewaltökonomien

Never ending resource conflicts? The political economy of African economies of violence. Since years there is an ongoing debate whether resource scarcity or resource curse is a causal factor for conflict and war especially in central and western Africa. The argument in this paper starts with a review of both bodies of literature. Though resource scarcity is and will be an important underlying factor for situations which may lead to militant crisis, it is argued that empirical evidence supports assumptions based on the paradox of the plenty. But it is argued that statistical and comparative studies are perhaps misleading because important aspects of war economies, especially their embeddedness within international networks, are neglected. The phrase “violent nodes in global networks” is used here and illustrated in respect to the war economy of the Democratic Republic Congo to analyze forms of local-global interplay. In this way it becomes obvious that localized forms of violence are part of global commodity chains and neoliberal restructuring of the world economy. Solutions for this kind of conflicts presuppose either strong transnational norms or ongoing military interventions by the UN.