The tragedy of the cocoa pod: rent-seeking, land and ethnic conflict in Ivory Coast

2003 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwayne Woods
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Labour Costs ◽  
Forest Rent

Many people have been surprised by the eruption of ethnic conflict and civil war in Ivory Coast. The country had gained a reputation as a relatively stable and economically prosperous agricultural republic in a region known for ethnic conflict, economic decline and civil war. The underlying factors that have led to the ethnic violence, the flight of immigrants from neighbouring countries, and the division of the country into a predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south have been known for some time. The country's property rights regime that encouraged easy access to a forest rent – as long as cheap migrant labour and virgin forested land were available – was a recipe for future conflict. As available land declined and labour costs increased, a cycle of sharpening conflicts over these assets contributed to the current situation of ethno-regional division and civil war.

Institutional Theory of Endless Redistribution

2005 ◽  
pp. 4-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Sonin
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
Private Protection ◽  
The Rich

In unequal societies, the rich may benefit from shaping economic institutions in their favor. This paper analyzes the dynamics of institutional subversion by focusing on public protection of property rights. If this institution functions imperfectly, agents have incentives to invest in private protection of property rights. The ability to maintain private protection systems makes the rich natural opponents of public protection of property rights and precludes grass-roots demand to drive the development of the market-friendly institution. The economy becomes stuck in a bad equilibrium with low growth rates, high inequality of income, and wide-spread rent-seeking. The Russian oligarchs of the 1990s, who controlled large stakes of newly privatized property, provide motivation for this paper.

Case Evidence: Conflict Trajectories in Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Syria

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Tir ◽  
Johannes Karreth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
East Timor ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Crisis Resolution ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
The Government

Two low-level armed conflicts, Indonesia’s East Timor and Ivory Coast’s post-2010 election crises, provide detailed qualitative evidence of highly structured intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) engaging in effective civil warpreventing activities in member-states. Highly structured IGOs threatened and sanctioned each of these states and offered (long-term) benefits conditional on successful crisis resolution. The governments were aware of and responded to these IGOs’ concerns, as did the rebels in these respective cases. The early stages of the conflict in Syria in 2011 provide a counterpoint. With Syria’s limited engagement in only few highly structured IGOs, the Syrian government ignored international calls for peace. And, without highly structured IGOs’ counterweight to curtail the government, the rebels saw little reason to stop their armed resistance. The result was a brutal and deadly civil war that continues today.

Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashutosh Varshney
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
The People

Scholars have worked either on civil society or on ethnic conflict, but no systematic attempt has yet been made to connect the two. In an attempt to explore the possible links, this article makes two interconnected arguments. First, interethnic and intraethnic networks of civic engagement play very different roles in ethnic conflict. Because they build bridges and manage tensions, interethnic networks are agents of peace. But if communities are organized only along intraethnic lines and the interconnections with other communities are very weak (or do not exist), ethnic violence is then quite likely. Second, civic networks, both intra- and interethnic, can also be broken down into two other types: associational forms of engagement and everyday forms of engagement. This distinction is based on whether civic interaction is formal or not. Both forms of engagement, if robust, promote peace: contrariwise, their absence or weakness opens up space for ethnic violence. Of the two, however, the associational forms turn out to be sturdier than everyday engagement, especially when confronted with attempts by politicians to polarize the people along ethnic lines. Both arguments have significance for theories of ethnic conflict and social capital.

Baptists against Racism and Ethnic Conflict… Worldwide!

2012 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Denton Lotz
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Baptist Church ◽  
International Summit ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
General Secretary

One of the most significant and rewarding experiences for me during my tenure as general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance was to sponsor an International Summit on Baptists against Racism and Ethnic Conflict. This significant summit was held from January 8 – 11, 1999, in the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.'s home church. At this summit we learned of the tragedy of racism worldwide. We learned that we needed to expand our definition of racism to include ethnic violence. We came as Christians and discovered the power of Christ to bring reconciliation and unity. The latter part of this article will review some of the horrific examples of racism and ethnic conflict worldwide. We will also celebrate the prophetic witness of many Baptist congregations worldwide in fighting against racism and ethnic violence.

Managing Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka through Constitutional Arrangements

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ilam Khan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
History Of

Marginalization causes conflicts; they may be political, social, or economic. A careful contemplation over the history of Sri Lanka reveals that the sentiments of being marginalized have been present — in one (ethnic) group or the other — in the island right from its independence. When the majority ethnic group, i.e., the Sinhala, was in a position of power, it manipulated the constitution of the country to safeguard its own interests. This widened the rift among different ethnic and religious groups, especially between the Sinhala and the Tamil. This structural marginalization resulted in a civil war, starting in 1983, that lasted for 26 years. However, the ethnic conflict did not resolve even after the end of the civil war and continues to exist in the form of a political struggle between the Tamil and Sinhala. The Tamil demand for federation, autonomy, inclusion, and self-determination can only be achieved through constitutional means. Therefore, this research evaluates the post-Civil Warconstitutional development and amendment processes that were, at a point in time, more pluralistic and liberal, and contributing well to managing the ethnic conflict in the country. It was expected that the ethnic conflict would be permanently resolved through the constitutional arrangements, which Sri Lanka was already heading. However, the majority (Sinhala) reversed the progress through a new (20th) amendment to the constitution. Against this backdrop, this article argues that all segments of the society can be accommodated in the political sphere of the state through political liberalization which is possible only through constitutional arrangements.

A Legal Ethnography

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Dayan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
The South ◽  
Legal Fiction ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines how judges determined the character of slaves. In the South, the adaptation of Lockean notions of personal identity to slaves was inextricably bound up with the understanding of person as a forensic term and the kind of legal incapacity and nonrecognition that signaled negative personhood. Thomas Morris in Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619–1860 argues that the most crucial legal fiction was that “the slave was an object of property rights, he or she was a ‘thing’.” However, what most occupied the thoughts of lawyers and judges in cases about personal rights in the courts of Virginia on the eve of the civil war was not to affirm the slave as property, but to articulate the personhood of slaves in such a way that it was disfigured, not erased. Slave law depended on this juridical diminution. The peculiar form impairment took and the transformations that ensued gave new meaning to degradation.

The Crime of Freedom

2018 ◽  
pp. 217-246
Author(s):  
Adam Malka
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Violence

Slavery in Maryland died during the 1860s, but for all of their promise the changes also brought heartbreak. As Chapter 7 shows, black men’s acquisition of a fuller bundle of property rights and legal protections brought them into conflict with the very criminal justice system built to guard those rights and ensure those protections. White commentators scoffed at black men’s supposed indolence and bristled at their households’ apparent disorder; police officers arrested black Baltimoreans for an expanding list of crimes; and black people, black men in particular, were incarcerated at growing rates. During the years immediately following the Civil War, Baltimore’s policemen and prisons perpetrated a form of racial violence that was different from yet indicative of the violence inflicted by the old order’s vigilantes. Castigated as criminals, freedmen’s legal victories provoked a form of policing reserved for the truly free.

Rejection of Radical Nationalism in Wartime Yugoslavia: The Case of Tuzla (1990–1995)

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-69
Author(s):  
Goran Filic
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
The City ◽  
Radical Nationalism

The article identifies causal mechanisms that help explain why the city of Tuzla managed to reject and avoid inter-ethnic conflict and radical nationalism during the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. Despite the overwhelming odds of being surrounded by vicious ethnic fighting and relentless nationalist attacks, the city of Tuzla protected and sustained peace in its borders. This research provides some explanations as to why Tuzla managed to survive radical nationalism and fragmentation during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. The article concludes that Tuzla's success was path dependent and its ability to reject violent nationalism revolved around Tuzla's identity of traditionally working class, anti-nationalist, anti-fascist forces around which Tuzla's citizens rallied. This helped elect the only non-ethnic political leadership in the country during the first multiparty municipal elections, and also actively protected citizens’ democratic choice against nationalist attempts to foster ethnic mobilisation and ethnic violence.

scholarly journals Law, Violence, and Property Expropriation in Syria: Impediments to Restitution and Return

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Stubblefield ◽  
Sandra Joireman
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Disproportionate Number ◽  
Property Restitution

After eight years of civil war, parts of Syria are now free from conflict. In recognition of the return to peace, the government officially welcomes back all who fled the country to escape violence. Yet, a pattern of property expropriation supported by the government during the war limits the ability of some to return and reclaim their homes and businesses. We argue here that intentional changes to law and policy regarding property rights during the war has led to asset losses for members of groups opposed to the government and created a barrier to property restitution and the return of these groups. We examine legal documents and secondary sources identifying government actions and their impact, noting the proliferation of laws that systematically erode the property rights of people who lack proximity, legal status, and regime allies. As the results of these laws manifest after the war, a disproportionate number of Syrians who opposed the government will find themselves without the houses, land, and property they held before the war began.

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