Natural resources and the dynamics of civil war duration and outcome
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891117728817 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Research article
Natural resources and
the dynamics of civil war
duration and outcome
Hirotaka Ohmura
Shiga University, Japan
Abstract
How do natural resources influence the duration of civil wars? Previous studies argue that resource
wealth increases rebels’ motivation for private gain (motivation mechanism) and provides rebel
leaders with suf ficient funding o pportunities to c ontinue their in surrectionary act ivities (feasib ility
mechanism), thereby increasing the likelihood of prolonged conflict. While these two mechanisms
are very importantarguments for explaining the role of natural resources in the continuation of civil
wars, there are not enough existing studies that analyze these two mechanisms separately. To
examine the two mechanisms, this article introduces three important factors to the analysis: the
lootability of natural resources, types of conflict termination, and power balance between govern-
ment and rebels. Empirically, this articleexamines the effect of natural resourceson conflict duration
for the period of 1946–2003, using a competing risk modeling approach. Findings from the quanti-
tative analysis reveal that lootable resources (onshore oil production) are negatively related to the
duration of a civil war that ends in rebel victory and positively related to the duration of a civil
war that ends in peace agreement when rebels have enough military capability. On the other hand,
empirical analysis shows that non-lootable resources (offshore oil production) tend to reduce the
duration of a civil war that e nds in government victory.
Keywords
natural resources, oil, civil war duration, civil war outcome, motivation and feasibility
Introduction
Some civil wars last longer than others. To reveal variations in civil war duration, a number of
studies have investigated factors that can explain dramatic variations in civil war durations, and
they have pointed out that resource wealth has a positive and significant effect on civil war
Corresponding author:
Hirotaka Ohmura, Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, 1-1-1, Banba, Hikone 522-8522, Japan.
Email: h-ohmura@biwako.shiga-u.ac.jp
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2018, Vol. 3(2) 133–148
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891117728817
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duration.
1
These studies argue that resource wealth increases rebels’ motivation for accumulating
private gain (motivation mechanism) and provides rebel leaders with sufficient funding opportu-
nities to continue their insurrectionary activities (feasibility mechanism), thereby increasing the
likelihood of prolonged conflict (Buhaug and Lujala, 2005; Buhaug et al., 2009; Collier et al.,
2004; Fearon, 2004; Lujala, 2010; Ross, 2006). In previous studies, the theoretical explanation for
a natural resources-conflict duration link is supported by the motivation and feasibility
mechanisms.
The motivation mechanism explains that rebels seek benefits from resource wealth and they
prefer continuing rather than stopping the armed conflict when they can obtain more benefits from
rebel activity in wartime than in peacetime. In other words, rebels are not likely to choose to end
armed conflict even when they can achieve military victory, because they can receive more private
gains from natural resources during armed conflict. On the other hand, according to the feasibility
mechanism, natural resources enable rebels, especially leaders, to increase the feasibility to con-
tinue fighting against a government army. Natural resources are a means to increase the probability
that rebels successfully achieve their purpose, to gain autonomy of their own area, or to obtain
government power.
Previous research on the resource-conflict link has carefully examined the relationship between
resource wealth and duration of armed conflict to consider the resource specific characteristics
(e.g. point or diffuse resources, and lootable or non-lootable resources) or the types of armed
conflict (e.g. ethnic conflict or secessionist conflict) (Buhaug et al., 2009; Lujala, 2010; Lujala
et al., 2007; Wucherpfenning et al., 2012). However, there has been insufficient focus on the
probability that the motivation mechanism and the feasibility mechanism offer different explana-
tions for resource wealth and conflict duration when we consider not only the lootability of natural
resources but also the types of civil war termination and the rebel strength. To precisely understand
the effect of resource wealth on rebel behavior and civil war duration, we need to take a closer look
at the two mechanisms and conduct empirical investigations.
This article is structured in the following manner. The next section reviews the existing liter-
ature that analyzes the effects of natural resources on civil war duration, and explains the effect of
lootable/non-lootable resources on how and when a civil war ends. The third section outlines the
research design for the empirical study, detailing the data source, variables, and method. The fourth
section presents several quantitative tests and interprets the results. The last section concludes by
summarizing the main findings of this article.
Natural resources and the dynamics of civil war duration and outcome
Previous research on natural resources and civil war duration
Why are resource conflicts believed to last longer than others? How exactly do natural resources
prolong civil wars? Previous research suggests that there are two mechanisms for explaining the
relationship between natural resources and civil war duration.
First is the motivation mechanism. Resource wealth tends to increase the duration of civil war
by stimulating the greedy motivation of rebellions. In wartime, individual rebels can more easily
commit criminal activities (looting or illegal commerce of spoils) for personal gain than in peace-
time. Favorable benefits in wartime provide rebel groups with the incentive to prolong the duration
of conflict (Addison et al., 2002; Collier, 2000). In short, when natural resource endowments are
associated more with greed-inspired rebellions, then either soldiers or their commanding officers
134 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 3(2)
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