This book shows how the underlying causes of civil war and political violence is based in concrete conditions relating to economic governance. The author argues that what matters for cauterizing the potentiality of sustainable violence is economic governance, specifically growth-promoting governance that maximizes returns to investment due to competitive free-market processes upheld by the rule of law and the protection of private property rights.
Political and economic rights and freedoms are clearly intertwined, but there may be advantages to prefacing one over another. This study shows why and how economic governance matters for generating civil peace, perhaps more so than rival perspectives based on the understanding that violence is motivated by political concerns and grievances that motivate people to rebel broadly. The book demonstrates that the organization of violence that is sustained over long periods of time are far more narrowly focused that the loud discourses generated by violence itself predict. Even if people have legitimate reasons for contesting a governments policies, such concerns become side-tracked, even abandoned, for reasons that may trump the necessity of compromise; namely, because more narrowly organised groups may have advantages for organizing violence and survive sanction. The mechanism through which this may occur is the primary focus of this book. The author examines quantitative data but uses empirical detail from Sri Lanka as a case study. Relying on historical sources on the Sri Lankan conflict to guide the discussion, the author uses data collected by a host of individuals and agencies in the statistical analyses that follow.
The work demonstrates that economic governance matters more than the political mechanisms most often argued in the literature. It will be of interest to those studying South Asian Politics, economic development, sociology, history, law, international relations, cultural studies and peace, security and conflict studies.
This book shows how the underlying causes of civil war and political violence is based in concrete conditions relating to economic governance.
Chapter 1: A Capitalist Civil Peace? Identifying the Mechanism
Chapter
2. The Shape of Armed Violence: Politics Trump Economics
Chapter
3. Assessing Rival Theory: Push Back on Grievance?
Chapter
4. Explaining the Capitalist Civil PeaceThe Organizational Logic
Chapter
5. Empirics of the onset of civil war: data, methods, and
replications
Chapter
6. Peace is not peace! economic governance, grievance, and
gratification
Chapter
7. Interpersonal violence: economic freedom, shadow markets, and
criminogenity
Chapter
8. The governance imperative: some conclusions, recommendations for
policy, and future research
Indra de Soysa is Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His research primarily focuses on political, economic and social outcomes of economic liberalization, the effects of institutions, and the causes of peace and prosperity. He has published widely on Foreign Direct Investment, the causes of civil and political violence, consequences of inequality, the natural resource curse, globalization, and environmental politics. His many publications appear in World Development, American Sociological Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, European Journal of Criminology, British Journal of Criminology, International Studies Quarterly, Energy Policy, Resource Policy, Social Science & Medicine among several others. He is a member of the Royal Norwegian Academy.
