How war-related deprivation affects political participation: Evidence from education loss in Liberia
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Author | Shelley X Liu |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433211019460 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
How war-related deprivation affects
political participation: Evidence
from education loss in Liberia
Shelley X Liu
Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California Berkeley
Abstract
How does civil war affect citizen engagement with democracy? Civilians who live through warfare face numerous
disruptions to everyday life that can have permanent effects on political engagement even after peace is achieved. This
article analyzes the role of depressed living standards resulting from educationloss during the Liberia CivilWar as a case
study of war-related deprivation. I argue that the negative effects of war on education and economic outcomes clash
with the expectations that citizens have for postwar democracy, with adverse consequences for political participation. I
demonstrate support for this argumentusing a mixed methods approach, combining qualitativeinterviews with census,
voting, and Afrobarometer survey data. I leverage a difference-in-differences identification strategy to causally identify
the negative impactof conflict on human capital for a generation of young adults,and on the downstream consequences
of disruptions in education on political participation. Results indicate that children who were of school age during the
civil war are differentially less likely to have any formal schooling by the end of the war. I further find that educational
deficiencies disproportionately decrease postwar job prospects, breeding resentment against the newly elected govern-
ment. This extends to political participation: those who lost out on educational opportunities due to war exhibit lower
political engagement and less desire to engage with democratic processes.
Keywords
conflict, deprivation, education, political participation, reconstruction
Introduction
How does civil war affect society and citizen interaction
with politics? Civilians who live through conflict face
war-induced challenges to everyday life even after peace
is achieved. I examine war-related relative deprivation
through education loss due to the Liberia civil war, which
took place from the end of 1989 until mid-1996 and then
again from 1999 to mid-2003. I argue that adverse effects
on future income, brought on by violence-induced dis-
ruptions in education, has downstream consequences
on politicalparticipation postwar. Amongindividuals who
grew up in comparatively well-educated areas, a loss of
educational opportunities due to conflict has led to dis-
satisfaction with the postwar democratic government.
Extant literature has focused on other channels by
which conflict can affect civic and political participation.
One strand examines the effects of shared experiences of
victimization on community-based healing after war and
finds pro-social outcomes including politicalparticipation,
civic engagement, and community support (Bauer et al.,
2016). For example, Bellows & Miguel (2009), Gilligan,
Pasquale & Samii (2014), and De Luca & Verpoorten
(2015) find in Sierra Leone, Nepal, and Uganda that
victimization during war increased participatory beha-
viors. Another strand examines divisive beliefs and finds
that war can induce negative social effects for different
groups of citizens: Grossman, Manekin & Miodownik
(2015) show that soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force
exposed to combat have significantly more negative atti-
tudes toward negotiation with opponents. This effect of
war extends to subsequent generations as a result of
Corresponding author:
shelleyxliu@berkeley.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2022, Vol. 59(3) 353–366
ªThe Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433211019460
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