IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ecogov/v7y2006i1p53-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On thugs and heroes: Why warlords victimize their own civilians

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Paul Azam

Abstract

Violence against civilians is the mainstay of modern warfare, and claims 84% of the war-related casualties. Looting and terror are the two main reasons why the soldiers victimize the civilians from the other side. However, examples have been found (Congo, Sierra Leone,...) where the guerilla and the incumbent army abuse the civilians from their own side. The present paper offers a potential explanation for this phenomenon, based on strategic looting. It argues that this behavior helps drawing a line between thugs and legitimate rebels. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Paul Azam, 2006. "On thugs and heroes: Why warlords victimize their own civilians," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 53-73, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:7:y:2006:i:1:p:53-73
    DOI: 10.1007/s10101-004-0090-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10101-004-0090-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10101-004-0090-x?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
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Azam, Jean-Paul, 1992. "The Agricultural Minimum Wage and Wheat Production in Morocco (1971-89)," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 1(2), pages 171-191, August.
    2. Little, I. M. D., 2002. "Ethics, Economics, and Politics: Principles of Public Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199257041.
    3. Durham, Yvonne & Hirshleifer, Jack & Smith, Vernon L., 2008. "The Paradox of Power," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 127-137, Elsevier.
    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. Oliver Vanden Eynde, 2018. "Targets of Violence: Evidence from India's Naxalite Conflict," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(609), pages 887-916, March.
    2. Bernd Beber & Christopher Blattman, 2010. "The Industrial Organization of Rebellion: The Logic of Forced Labor and Child Soldiering," HiCN Working Papers 72, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    4. Blouin, Max & Pallage, Stéphane, 2016. "Warlords, famine and food aid: Who fights, who starves?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 18-38.
    5. David Siroky & Valery Dzutsati, 2015. "The Empire Strikes Back: Ethnicity, Terrain, and Indiscriminate Violence in Counterinsurgencies," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(3), pages 807-829, September.
    6. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    7. Mario Ferrero, 2020. "A theory of revolutionary organizations," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 245-273, September.
    8. Jason Lyall, 2008. "Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," HiCN Working Papers 44, Households in Conflict Network.
    9. Pierre-Emmanuel Ly, 2007. "The charitable activities of terrorist organizations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 177-195, April.

    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. Maxime Menuet & Petros G. Sekeris, 2021. "Overconfidence and conflict," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1483-1499, October.
    2. Sandler, Todd & Enders, Walter, 2004. "An economic perspective on transnational terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-316, June.
    3. Iyigun, Murat, 2006. "Ottoman Conquests and European Ecclesiastical Pluralism," IZA Discussion Papers 1973, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Jung, Hanjoon Michael, 2009. "Spatial pillage game," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(11), pages 701-707, December.
    5. Ola Olsson & Heather Congdon Fors, 2004. "Congo: The Prize of Predation," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 41(3), pages 321-336, May.
    6. Robert Ridlon, 2016. "Does Manufacturer Advertising Crowd‐in or Crowd‐out Retailer Advertising? An Application of an Endogenous Prize Contest with Asymmetric Players," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 364-379, October.
    7. Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2017. "Decisiveness, peace, and inequality in games of conflict," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 216-229.
    8. Michelle R. Garfinkel & Stergios Skaperdas & Constantinos Syropoulos, 2009. "International Trade and Transnational Insecurity: How Comparative Advantage and Power are Jointly Determined," Working Papers 080921, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    9. Flores Thomas Edward, 2014. "Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 5-31, January.
    10. Jack Hirshleifer & Michele Boldrin & David K Levine, 2009. "The Slippery Slope Of Concession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(2), pages 197-205, April.
    11. Gautam Bose, 2023. "Contributing to Peace," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 67(10), pages 1993-2027, November.
    12. Martin Kolmar & Andreas Wagener, 2010. "Inefficient Group Organization as Optimal Adaption to Dominant Environments," CESifo Working Paper Series 3157, CESifo.
    13. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    14. Sonin, Konstantin, 2003. "Why the rich may favor poor protection of property rights," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 715-731, December.
    15. Chiara Brouns & Rudy Douven & Ron Kemp, 2021. "Prices and market power in mental health care: Evidence from a major policy change in the Netherlands," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 803-819, April.
    16. Michael Foley & Rory Smead & Patrick Forber & Christoph Riedl, 2021. "Avoiding the bullies: The resilience of cooperation among unequals," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-18, April.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5404 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Raouf Boucekkine & Rodolphe Desbordes & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi, 2023. "Elite-led revolutions," AMSE Working Papers 2319, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    19. Jellal, Mohamed, 2012. "Maroc salaire minimum emploi et pauvreté [Morocco minimum wage employment and poverty]," MPRA Paper 38491, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Kyung Hwan Baik & Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2014. "Resources for Conflict: Constraint or Wealth?," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 061, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    21. Grossman, Herschel I & Kim, Minseong, 1995. "Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1275-1288, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Looting; violence; warlords;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:ecogov:v:7:y:2006:i:1:p:53-73. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.