Conflict, Civil War and Underdevelopment: An Introduction
| Published date | 01 July 2002 |
| Author | S. MANSOOB MURSHED |
| Date | 01 July 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343302039004001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
387
Introduction
Conflict has been a feature of human society
since time immemorial. Disputes that arise
may be organized around social class, ethnic-
ity, religion, region, or some combination of
these factors. The struggle can be over
economic opportunities, as well as political
and civil rights, among other contestable
factors. In peaceful societies, conflict is
channelled into nonviolent means and insti-
tutions for both its expression and resolu-
tion. Economic and human development
cannot occur without a large measure of
social stability, which in turn requires the
nurturing of institutions for nonviolent con-
flict resolution. Conflict in low-income
countries makes the objective of poverty
reduction all the more difficult, since not
only is growth retarded, public money is
taken for military spending from basic social
services, and the poor are themselves dispro-
portionately the victims of conflict. Econ-
omists are increasingly concerned with how
badly designed economic policy raises the
vulnerability of low-income developing
© 2002 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 39, no. 4, 2002, pp. 387–393
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks,
CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433(200207)39:4; 387–393; 025804]
Conflict, Civil War and Underdevelopment:
An Introduction*
S. MANSOOB MURSHED
Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
Conflict has been a feature of human society since time immemorial. Disputes that arise may be organ-
ized around social class, ethnicity, religion, region, or some combination of these factors. The struggle
can be over economic opportunities, as well as political and civil rights, among other contestable factors.
In peaceful societies, conflict is channelled into nonviolent means and institutions for both its expres-
sion and resolution. Civil war is not necessarily irrational, but a product of certain objectives, therefore
amenable to rational-choice analysis. In low-income countries, civil war makes poverty reduction and
growth difficult to achieve. Many contemporary civil wars have an ethnic dimension, as ethnicity is a
strong uniting force. Grievances, therefore, play a major part in contemporary conflict, but greed – the
desire to control resources and capture rents – also enters into the calculus of conflict. Ultimately, open
warfare cannot emerge inside a society with a functioning social contract, as greed and grievances are
managed and conflict is contained in countries with properly operating institutions. Consequently, con-
flict resolution requires the reconstitution of the social contract.
* I am grateful to Tony Addison, my project co-director at
WIDER (http: //www.wider.unu.edu), for stimulating aca-
demic interaction over a number of years. Thanks are also
due to Scott Gates and Nils Petter Gleditsch for their
encouragement. The contributions of the authors in this
special issue and other project participants of the WIDER
project on ‘Why Some Countries Avoid Conflict While
Others Fail’ are gratefully acknowledged. WIDER also
gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the
governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden
towards its research programme and activities during
2000–01. Glenn Martin of JPR and Janis Vehmann-Kruela
of WIDER superbly handled the administrative side. All
opinions expressed in this article are mine alone, and
should not necessarily be ascribed to WIDER or the ISS.
Correspondence: murshed@iss.nl.
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