IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v52y2008i4p590-617.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population, Resources, and Political Violence

Author

Listed:
  • Henrik Urdal

    (Centre for the Study of Civil War, The International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway, henriku@prio.no)

Abstract

Recent cross-national studies have found only moderate support for the idea that population pressure and resource scarcity may lead to political violence, contrary to much of the case study literature in the field. This article suggests that the level of analysis may be at the heart of this discrepancy. In a time-series study of political violence in 27 Indian states for the 1956–2002 period, it is tested whether high population pressure on renewable natural resources, youth bulges, and differential growth rates between religious groups are associated with higher levels of armed conflict, political violent events, and Hindu-Muslim riots. The results are generally more supportive of the resource scarcity and conflict scenario than recent global studies. The article further suggests that youth bulges affect all three forms of violence and that differential growth rates are positively related to armed conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Henrik Urdal, 2008. "Population, Resources, and Political Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(4), pages 590-617, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:52:y:2008:i:4:p:590-617
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002708316741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002708316741
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002708316741?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lomborg,Bjørn, 2001. "The Skeptical Environmentalist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521010689.
    2. 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.
    3. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    4. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    5. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 2001. "Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water: A Comment on Green, Kim, and Yoon," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 487-495, April.
    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. Daniil Romanov & Andrey Korotayev, 2019. "«Non-Violent, But Still Dangerous»: Testing The Link Between Youth Bulges And The Intensity Of Non-Violent Protests," HSE Working papers WP BRP 69/PS/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    2. Wagschal Uwe & Metz Thomas, 2016. "A Demographic Peace? Youth Bulges and Other Population-Related Causes of Domestic Conflict," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1-2), pages 55-97, December.
    3. Atsushi Kato & Takahiro Sato, 2016. "Violent Conflicts and Economic Performance of the Manufacturing Sector in India," Discussion Paper Series DP2016-01, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.

    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. 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.
    2. Ghimire, Ramesh & Ferreira, Susana, 2013. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: The Case of Large Floods," 2013 Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 2013, Orlando, Florida 142587, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    3. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2017. "A critical survey of the resource curse literature through the appropriability lens," CEPN Working Papers hal-01583559, HAL.
    4. Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza & Witthuhn, Stefan, 2017. "Corruption and political stability: Does the youth bulge matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 47-70.
    5. Patricia Justino, 2009. "The Impact of Armed Civil Conflict on Household Welfare and Policy Responses," Research Working Papers 12, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
    6. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2018. "The resource curse literature as seen through the appropriability lens: a critical survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 393-428, June.
    7. Kiikpoye K. Aaron, 2015. "Relative deprivation and insurgency: What lessons from Nigeria’s flawed federalism?," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 164-181, June.
    8. Ghimire, Ramesh & Ferreira, Susana & Dorfman, Jeffrey H., 2015. "Flood-Induced Displacement and Civil Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 614-628.
    9. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2017. "A critical survey of the resource curse literature through the appropriability lens," CEPN Working Papers 2017-14, Centre d'Economie de l'Université de Paris Nord.
    11. Randall J. Blimes, 2006. "The Indirect Effect of Ethnic Heterogeneity on the Likelihood of Civil War Onset," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(4), pages 536-547, August.
    12. Christopher Cramer, 2003. "Does inequality cause conflict?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 397-412.
    13. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Matsumoto, Mitsuko, 2016. "Three strands of explanations on root causes of civil war in low-income and weak states in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for education," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-10.
    15. Elisabeth Gilmore & Nils Petter Gleditsch & Päivi Lujala & Jan Ketil Rod, 2005. "Conflict Diamonds: A New Dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 22(3), pages 257-272, July.
    16. Ang, James B. & Gupta, Satyendra Kumar, 2018. "Agricultural yield and conflict," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 397-417.
    17. Sandbu, Martin E., 2006. "Natural wealth accounts: A proposal for alleviating the natural resource curse," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1153-1170, July.
    18. Kabwe Omoyi Fanny, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Political Regime Type in African Sub-Regions," Asian Journal of Economic Modelling, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(2), pages 153-165, June.
    19. Alessandro Moro, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamics of Violent Political Revolutions in an Agent-Based Framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, April.
    20. Mehlum, Halvor & Ove Moene, Karl, 2011. "Aggressive elites and vulnerable entrepreneurs - trust and cooperation in the shadow of conflict," Memorandum 16/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.

    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:sae:jocore:v:52:y:2008:i:4:p:590-617. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.