Greed, Grievances, or Strategic Intransigence? Why Oil-Rich Regions Fight Separatist Civil Wars
نویسنده
چکیده
Oil-rich regions frequently fight separatist civil wars, consistent with the broader hypothesis that oil wealth diminishes prospects for civil peace. Although existing “greed” and “grievances” hypotheses highlight important attributes of oil production that may contribute to violence, we have few insights into a basic question about mechanisms: what prevents governments from strategically using the large revenue streams afforded by oil to buy off secessionists? This paper studies an infinitely repeated stochastic game in which a government bargains with a territorial actor over regional revenues. The region can guard against government predation of its economic production by exiting the formal economy or by fighting to secede. The first result explains why capital-intense oil production undermines the region’s economic exit option, which facilitates government exploitation and increases the likelihood of separatist civil wars. The second result complements this conflict-inducing effect by demonstrating that local oil wealth reinforces bad institutions by undermining government incentives to adopt taxation constraints. Postdoctoral Associate, Wallis Institute of Political Economy, University of Rochester, [email protected]. I thank Robert Powell, Nazli Avdan, Tiberiu Dragu, Ryan Hubert, Bethany Lacina, Alex Lee, Peter Lorentzen, and Sean Zeigler for helpful comments on earlier drafts. All remaining mistakes are my own.
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