Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa

Political conflicts in Africa have intensified due to the competition for natural resources by various conflicting parties and their conflict intensification. Previous studies have shown that cell phone coverage plays a significant role in the occurrence of these conflicts. This paper explores the i...

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Main Authors: Han, Jiaxin, Feng, Fushen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/1/S%204.pdf
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author Han, Jiaxin
Feng, Fushen
author_facet Han, Jiaxin
Feng, Fushen
author_sort Han, Jiaxin
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Political conflicts in Africa have intensified due to the competition for natural resources by various conflicting parties and their conflict intensification. Previous studies have shown that cell phone coverage plays a significant role in the occurrence of these conflicts. This paper explores the impact of oil reserves and diamond abundance on cell phone coverage in Africa. The authors also investigate how rebels are motivated by these resources to engage in conflicts. The Scobit model (Nagler 1994) is used to analyse the cases of unbalanced conflict, which is found to be more accurate than the Logistic model. The results indicate that diamond abundance is a resource blessing, while oil reserves lead to a resource curse. However, the latter finding needs to be more consistent across robustness checks, suggesting that the effects of different natural resources on African political conflicts remain debatable.
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spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:256062025-07-15T03:46:45Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/ Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa Han, Jiaxin Feng, Fushen Political conflicts in Africa have intensified due to the competition for natural resources by various conflicting parties and their conflict intensification. Previous studies have shown that cell phone coverage plays a significant role in the occurrence of these conflicts. This paper explores the impact of oil reserves and diamond abundance on cell phone coverage in Africa. The authors also investigate how rebels are motivated by these resources to engage in conflicts. The Scobit model (Nagler 1994) is used to analyse the cases of unbalanced conflict, which is found to be more accurate than the Logistic model. The results indicate that diamond abundance is a resource blessing, while oil reserves lead to a resource curse. However, the latter finding needs to be more consistent across robustness checks, suggesting that the effects of different natural resources on African political conflicts remain debatable. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/1/S%204.pdf Han, Jiaxin and Feng, Fushen (2023) Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa. SINERGI: Journal of Strategic Studies & International Affairs, 3 (1). pp. 35-55. ISSN 2805-4520 https://spaj.ukm.my/sinergi/index.php/sei/issue/view/5
spellingShingle Han, Jiaxin
Feng, Fushen
Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title_full Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title_fullStr Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title_full_unstemmed Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title_short Testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? The effect of natural resources on political violence in Africa
title_sort testing the tehory, blessing or resource curse? the effect of natural resources on political violence in africa
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/25606/1/S%204.pdf