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State-Sponsored Mass Killing in African Wars—Greed or Grievance?

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  • Chyanda Querido

Abstract

What motivates African governments to engage in mass killings at some stage in the armed conflicts? I make the argument that violence against civilians is the outcome of a rational decision process. Using an empirical model, I identify the conditions for civil wars to evolve into mass killings. The results show that the existence of oil onshore and diamonds, the cost of a military conflict, and the number of ethnic groups in a country affect the likelihood of mass killing. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2009

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  • Chyanda Querido, 2009. "State-Sponsored Mass Killing in African Wars—Greed or Grievance?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 15(3), pages 351-361, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:iaecre:v:15:y:2009:i:3:p:351-361:10.1007/s11294-009-9207-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11294-009-9207-x
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    1. José G. Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2005. "Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 796-816, June.
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    7. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2002-01, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
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    9. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "Greed and grievance in civil wars," CSAE Working Paper Series 2002-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    10. Harff, Barbara, 2003. "No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 57-73, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Attiat F. Ott & Sang Hoo Bae, 2011. "Modeling Mass Killing: For Gain or Ethnic Cleansing?," Chapters, in: Derek L. Braddon & Keith Hartley (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Conflict, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Hanne Fjelde & Lisa Hultman & Livia Schubiger & Lars-Erik Cederman & Simon Hug & Margareta Sollenberg, 2021. "Introducing the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(1), pages 109-126, January.
    3. Butler, Dana, 2021. "Horizontal inequality and grievances: A lethal combination? A case study analyzing the impact of the Israeli settlement policy on the level of violence of Palestinian citizens living in Hebron," IPE Working Papers 168/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).

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    Keywords

    Mass killing; Civil war; Africa;
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