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Replication Data for: Natural Resources and Civil War: Another Look with New Data (with Indra De Soysa), Conflict Management and Peace Science, 24(3), 2007, pp. 201-218

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Natural Resources and Civil War: Another Look with New Data (with Indra De Soysa), Conflict Management and Peace Science, 24(3), 2007, pp. 201-218
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3ICRMI
 
Creator Neumayer, Eric
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The existing literature identifies natural resource wealth as a major determinant of civil
war. The dominant causal link is that resources provide finance and motive (the “looting
rebels” model). Others see natural resources as causing “political Dutch disease,” which
in turn weakens state capacity (the “state capacity” model). In the looting rebels model,
resource wealth first increases, but then decreases the risk for civil war as very large
wealth enables governments to constrain rebels, whereas in the state capacity model,
large resource wealth is unambiguously related to higher risk of war. This research note
uses a new dataset on natural resource rents that are disaggregated as mineral and
energy rents for addressing the resources-conflict relationship. We find that neither a
dummy variable for major oil exporters nor our resource rents variables predict civil
war onset with a 1000-battle-death threshold coded by Fearon and Laitin (2003) in the
period after 1970 for which rents data are available. However, using a lower threshold
of 25 battle deaths, we find that energy wealth, but not mineral wealth, increases the risk
for civil war onset. We find no evidence for a nonlinear relationship between either type
of resources and civil war onset. The results tentatively support theories built around
state capacity models and provide evidence against the looting rebels model of civil war
onset.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Contributor Neumayer, Eric