Causes of Civil Wars: The Influence of Natural Resurces Extractive Technologies on the Probability of Civil War Outbreak

Abstract

This study aimed to provide more general knowledge about the mechanisms which link natural resources with civil war outbreaks. The theoretical point of departure was the feasibility hypothesis hypothesis of Collier et al. (2009) in which the authors state that the paramount interest of researchers of civil wars should be directed at the structural conditions within a country. One of their assertions pertained to the role of natural resources. Those provide a potential revenue source for insurgents to finance their rebellion. Hence, the higher the dependence of a state on natural resource exports, the higher should be the probability of civil war outbreak. However, this account was heavily criticized by other researchers. Some claimed that the conceptualization of the Primary Commodity Exports (PCE) variable does not cover relevant natural resources (Fearon 2005), others pointed at the problem of reversed causality and endogeneity (Gleditsch 1998) and also others stressed to differentiate between different natural resources according to their proneness to be looted by rebels (Ross 2003). In order to address these problems, a new variable was conceptualized. The "extraction feasibility" variable measures the degree of extractability of a particular resource. It is composed of two notions, namely...