IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v39y2011i2p212-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanations of War: Tracing Causal Processes in Two West African Insurgencies

Author

Listed:
  • Richards, Paul

Abstract

Summary Many accounts of cultural factors in armed conflicts are dependent on circumstantial details. Alternative quantitative approaches suffer from confusion of correlation and cause. This paper describes and exemplifies a third approach to the analysis of cultural factors in war--causal process tracing. Six key steps in implementing causal process tracing are outlined and applied to recent episodes of armed conflict in Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. The virtue of the method lies in establishing a systematic framework for the comparison and evaluation of cultural mechanisms, thus providing an escape from hazards associated with subjective regression.

Suggested Citation

  • Richards, Paul, 2011. "A Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanations of War: Tracing Causal Processes in Two West African Insurgencies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 212-220, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:212-220
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00202-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mahoney, James & Goertz, Gary, 2006. "A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 227-249, July.
    2. Beck, Nathaniel, 2006. "Is Causal-Process Observation an Oxymoron?," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 347-352, July.
    3. Mary Douglas, 1999. "Culture clash in American anthropology," Nature, Nature, vol. 400(6745), pages 631-632, August.
    4. James D. Fearon & Macartan Humphreys & Jeremy M. Weinstein, 2009. "Can Development Aid Contribute to Social Cohesion after Civil War? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Post-conflict Liberia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 287-291, May.
    5. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2000. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War," CSAE Working Paper Series 2000-18, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Abigail Barr, 2003. "Trust and expected trustworthiness: experimental evidence from zimbabwean villages," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 614-630, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Casey, Gregory P. & Owen, Ann L., 2014. "Inequality and Fractionalization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 32-50.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alejandro Avenburg & John Gerring & Jason Seawright, 2023. "How do social scientists reach causal inferences? A study of reception," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 257-275, February.
    2. Abbie Turiansky, "undated". "Collective Action in Games as in Life: Experimental Evidence from Canal Cleaning in Haiti," Mathematica Policy Research Reports b4f3a3ef599b43c6a875d9380, Mathematica Policy Research.
    3. Stefan Kohler, 2013. "More Fair Play in an Ultimatum Game after Resettlement in Zimbabwe: A Field Experiment and a Structural Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-12, May.
    4. Turiansky, Abbie, 2021. "Collective action in games as in life: Experimental evidence from canal cleaning in Haiti," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Halvor Mehlum & Karl Moene & Ragnar Torvik, 2006. "Institutions and the Resource Curse," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 1-20, January.
    6. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    7. Ciccone, Antonio, 2018. "International Commodity Prices and Civil War Outbreak: New Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond," CEPR Discussion Papers 12625, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Haegeman, Karel & Marinelli, Elisabetta & Scapolo, Fabiana & Ricci, Andrea & Sokolov, Alexander, 2013. "Quantitative and qualitative approaches in Future-oriented Technology Analysis (FTA): From combination to integration?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 386-397.
    9. Li Gan & Manuel A. Hernandez & Yanyan Liu, 2018. "Group Lending With Heterogeneous Types," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 895-913, April.
    10. Boehnke, Denise & Jehling, Mathias & Vogt, Joachim, 2023. "What hinders climate adaptation? Approaching barriers in municipal land use planning through participant observation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    11. Auty, R. M., 2003. "Third time lucky for Algeria? Integrating an industrializing oil-rich country into the global economy," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1-2), pages 37-47.
    12. Gustav Lidén, 2013. "What about theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 213-225, January.
    13. Tilman Br�ck & Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp & Andrew Tedesco & Alexandra Avdeenko, 2013. "Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys," HiCN Working Papers 153, Households in Conflict Network.
    14. Takeshi Aida, 2019. "Social capital as an instrument for common pool resource management: a case study of irrigation management in Sri Lanka," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 952-978.
    15. Anke Hoeffler & Patricia Justino, 2024. "Aid and fragile states," Chapters, in: Raj M. Desai & Shantayanan Devarajan & Jennifer L. Tobin (ed.), Handbook of Aid and Development, chapter 14, pages 225-246, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Yashodha, 2019. "Trust and kinship: experimental evidence from rural India," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(2), pages 223-237, December.
    17. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    18. Maarten Voors & Eleonora Nillesen & Philip Verwimp & Erwin Bulte & Robert Lensink & Daan van Soest, 2010. "Does Conflict affect Preferences? Results from Field Experiments in Burundi," HiCN Working Papers 71, Households in Conflict Network.
    19. Wald, Nina & Bozzoli, Carlos, 2011. "Bullet Proof? Program Evaluation in Conflict Areas: Evidence from Rural Colombia," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 80, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    20. Hongbin Cai & Ginger Z. Jin & Chong Liu & Li-An Zhou, 2013. "More Trusting, Less Trust? An Investigation of Early E-Commerce in China," NBER Working Papers 18961, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:212-220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.