Is Coca Worth Killing For? Natural Resources and Civil Conflict Intensity: The Shining Path in Peru

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willow Petersen

This paper focuses on the effect natural resources have on the intensity ofcivil conflict in the context of states developing natural resource and counterinsurgency policies. This paper conducts a comparative within-country case study to test the relationship between natural resources and civil conflict intensity. Through a comparative within-country case study, the effect of coca cultivation on the intensity of Peru’s civil war is examined to test the hypothesis that natural resources cause more intense civil conflict. This hypothesis is deemed plausible, as evidence is used to test three causal mechanisms: natural resources provide insurgents with wealth, increase the “prize value” of a region, and draw more international attention and intervention. These mechanisms are confirmed for the case of Peru, and a fourth, and initially unexpected, mechanism emerges.

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316801881823 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O’Brochta

The relationship between natural resource wealth and civil conflict remains unclear, despite prolonged scholarly attention. Conducting a meta-analysis—a quantitative literature review—can help synthesize this broad and disparate field to provide clearer directions for future research. Meta-analysis tools determine both the aggregate effect of natural resources on conflict and whether any particular ways in which variables are measured systematically bias the estimated effect. I conduct a meta-analysis using sixty-nine studies from sixty-two authors. I find that there is no aggregate relationship between natural resources and conflict. Most variation in variable measurement does not alter the estimated effect. However, measuring natural resource wealth using Primary Commodity Exports and including controls for mountainous terrain and ethnic fractionalization all do significantly impact the results. These findings suggest that it may be worth exploring more nuanced connections between natural resources and conflict instead of continuing to study the overall relationship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 575
Author(s):  
Rabah Arezki ◽  
Markus Brueckner

Military expenditures significantly affect the relationship between the risk of civil conflict outbreak and natural resources. We show that a significant positive effect of natural resource rents on the risk of civil conflict outbreak is limited to countries with low military expenditures. In countries with high military expenditures, there is no significant effect of natural resource rents on civil conflict onset. An important message is thus that a conflict resource curse is absent in countries with sufficiently large military expenditures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deineha Maryna ◽  
◽  
Marinich Volodymyr ◽  

The article examines the place of Natural Resource Law and post-resource branches of law in the legal system, proposes a hierarchy of these branches and outlines the relationship between the subjects of natural resource and post-resource relations. The subject of legal regulation of Natural Resource Law is defined as qualitatively homogeneous natural resource relations, consisting of the use and reproduction of natural resources – a legally defined part of the environment that have signs of natural origin and are in ecological relationship with the environment and with each other, can be used as a source of meeting human needs. All natural resources, as well as the relationship to their use and reproduction, are closely linked. This connection will always be inseparable and reciprocal. It is established that in the system of Natural Resource Law public relations regarding the use and reproduction of certain natural resources are in fact its subsectors and provide a differentiated approach to the environmentally sound use of each of the relevant natural resources. Natural Resource Law is not a conglomeration of land, water, forest and subsoil law, but their qualitative unity based on a single nature, factors of development and the internal structure of social relations. It is concluded that neither the long history of legislation, nor a significant amount of regulations that are sources of post-resource industries, are grounds for denying the inseparable and mutual connection of post-resource branches of law with each other and with Natural Resource Law and the objective need for separation independent branch of Natural Resource Law. Keywords: Natural Resource Law, land law, water law, forest law, subsoil law, faunal law, floristic law, natural resource relations, post-resource relations, legal system, branch of law


2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
K. Patytska

The paper determines the natural assets of territorial communities and reveals their components in the context of domestic legislation. Scientific approaches to the specified problem in domestic and western scientific thought are developed. The essence of the concept «natural assets» is revealed and their main features – the presence of the identified owner, active manager and user; cost; Legal Status; economic return are defined. The relationship between the categories «natural assets», «natural resources» and «natural resource potential» are established. The main difference between natural resources as the asset of territorial community and other types of assets – the need for dual approach to their management: to generate income, ensure community development and in the interests of all stakeholder groups; in order to preserve the natural environment is revealed. The scientific approach to natural resource management with the participation of local communities, which is based on the principles of subsidiarity, sustainability, fairness, accountability, efficiency, activity, adaptability, environmental responsibility, inclusiveness is analyzed. This approach has the following common features: decentralization of powers to manage natural assets; reconciling the interests of stakeholders and opportunities for efficient of natural resources use; combination of environmental and socio-economic goals in the process of natural asset management; development of institutions for increasing decision-making efficiency in the field of natural asset management at the community level; stakeholders education and notification. Scientific approaches to the systematization of natural assets of territorial communities in terms of stakeholders groups (by ownership of the asset, the possibility of access to the asset and competition in their use) are studied. The expediency of classifying stakeholders as natural assets of territorial communities by their interests is substantiated. The peculiarities of the use/utilization and possession of natural resources in accordance with the legislative acts regulating natural resource relations in Ukraine are revealed.


1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 742-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin O'Connor

In 1866, theAtlantic Monthlypublished a fictional case study of an army surgeon who had lost all of his limbs during the Civil War. Written anonymously by American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, “The Case of George Dedlow” describes not only the series of wounds and infections which led to the amputation of all four of the soldier's arms and legs but also the after-effects of amputation. Reduced to what he terms “a useless torso, more like some strange larval creature than anything of human shape,” Dedlow finds that in disarticulating his body, amputation articulates anatomical norms. His observation of his own uniquely altered state qualifies him to speak in universal terms about the relationship between sentience and selfhood: “I have dictated these pages,” he says, “not to shock my readers, but to possess them with facts in regard to the relation of the mind to the body” (1866:5). As such, the story explores the meaning of embodiment, finding in a fragmented anatomy the opportunity to piece together a more complete understanding of how the body functions—physically and metaphysically—as a whole.


Author(s):  
Gustavo Xavier Bonifaz

The present paper aims at answering why a country that shared, with other Latin American states, a centralist tradition that was even strengthened in the aftermath of its 1952 revolution, became one of the most radical and complex decentralisers in the region. The present is a country case study in which, using a process-tracing analysis, the evolution of decentralisation in Bolivia will be explained up to its current complex structure from a perspective of the relationship between political legitimation under competitive elections and the way in which the party system processed longstanding tensions between the state and different segments of society.


Desertion ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
Théodore McLauchlin

This chapter develops the account of desertion primarily in the context of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, which clarifies the role of several variables through Spain. It looks at many different organizations on both the rebel side and the Republican side in order to examine the impact of different armed group characteristics on desertion. It uses the Spain case study to understand desertion dynamics in a particularly fascinating civil conflict. The chapter focuses on the Republican side, analyzing the dynamics of its relatively high rate of desertion at various points in the conflict. It demonstrates norms of cooperation and coercion at the micro level to statistically assess individual soldiers' decisions to fight or to flee.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002200942094992
Author(s):  
Morris Brodie

This article explores the twin phenomena of anti-fascism and transnational war volunteering through a case study of the International Group of the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War. This anarchist-led unit comprised approximately 368 volunteers with a variety of political views from at least 25 different countries. The article examines the relationship between these foreign volunteers and their Spanish hosts (both anarchist and non-anarchist), through, firstly, the militarization of the militias in the winter of 1936, and, secondly, the group’s role in the May Days of 1937 and its aftermath. These episodes show the often hostile attitude of Spaniards to foreigners within Spain and challenge the characterization of the conflict as distinctively internationalist. The lives of these volunteers also highlight the continuity of anti-fascism between the interwar and wartime period, with Spain acting as an ‘anti-fascist melting pot’ where volunteers of different backgrounds and political leanings came together in a common cause. This commitment, however, was not unconditional, and was frequently challenged due to circumstances within Spain. Through studying these transnational fighters, we have a more comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of twentieth century anti-fascism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 1234-1255
Author(s):  
Mohammad Arzaghi ◽  
Andrew Balthrop

Rents from natural resources can alter the relationship between central and local governments by providing a new source of government financing. We develop a model to explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and resource abundance. Our model indicates that natural resource rents can detach central government expenditures from the tax base so that the central government can spend more to persuade a fractious periphery to remain under central government control. Thus, other things being equal, higher natural resource rents can result in less decentralized government expenditures. We empirically explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and natural resource rents using a panel of 60 countries over the past 40 years. Empirical results support our economic model: A 1% increase in natural resource rents as a fraction of gross domestic product results in government expenditures that are 0.53% less decentralized.


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