The root of all evil: The economics of Civil Wars. (Review Essays).

The point that economic factors matter in war is not new and has been proven in conflicts past and present. In the edited volume Greed and Grievance, Mats Berdal and David Malone stress that wars need to be understood in terms of their political economy, and they provide some of the best research

Berdal and Malone's volume provides a fresh view on links between large-scale criminal activities and armed conflicts, the role of the private sector in war economies, and the lack of an international legal regime to deal with white-collar war profiteers. However, some of the policy conclusions that follow from this analysis are controversial. For instance, one might argue that the reduction of inequality might not achieve much in terms of conflict prevention if it is not accompanied by a political process and an active suppression of economic opportunities for belligerents.

The book is organized into two parts. While the first half of the book examines the political economy of civil wars, the second offers a discussion of policies designed to address the problem of economic agendas in civil wars. In the opening essay of the book, David Keen demonstrates that war is not always fought for an ultimate victory or political advances and does not simply reflect a breakdown of society. War might instead represent an alternative system of profit, power, and protection. Violence pays economic dividends that war can amplify by conferring both means and legitimacy on predatory winners.

Examining the empirical pattern of civil wars between 1965 and 1999, World Bank Director of Research Paul Collier furthers Keen's argument, asserting that "the true cause of much civil war is not the loud discourse of grievance but the silent force of greed." In his essay "Doing Well out of War," Collier finds no explanatory power in what he identifies as the main elements of grievances, which include inequality, government incompetence, repression, and ethnic fractionalization; in fact, the latter two reduce the risk of conflict. In contrast, greed is closely correlated with the occurrence of civil war. Collier postulates that dependence on primary commodity exports makes countries especially susceptible to armed rebellion. Indeed, because of their lootability, such commodities offer economic opportunities to greedy belligerents. Yet, Collier does not point out that such resource-dependent countries are often characterized by substandard public services and living conditions, corruption, and authoritarianism , all potential grievances. In other words, a dangerous mix of greed and grievances comes out of mismanaged resource-dependent countries. As Keen points out, while the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone did finance itself through "conflict diamonds," the causes of the war lay less in the greed of its leadership than in the weakness of a state plundered by its ruling elite.

In his contribution "Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars," William Reno builds on his work in Sierra Leone and explores the relationship between civil wars and weak polities. Preserving the facade of the state, rulers have personalized their rule through a backstage control of the (informal) private economy to adopt and often hijack the rhetoric of economic liberalization and structural adjustments. While there is nothing new in such "shadow" politics, greater private access to weapons and the increasing privatization of state security have frequently led to the routinization of criminal practices. These developments have made it easier to use disorder as a pretext for the use of force in the interest of personal gain, both outside and within state institutions. This wider availability of arms and private military muscle has given rise to warlord politics and enabled belligerents to assert economic control through violence.

Globalization has undeniably facilitated links between war economies and international markets, symbolized in sad irony on the book cover by the now-leveled World Trade Center in New York. Mark Duffield, in his essay "Globalization, Transborder Trade and War Economies," argues that globalization has led to the emergence of a "durable disorder." Rather than promoting economic growth and political stability, globalization encourages illiberal and quasi-feudal forms of power and political economy to expand through unregulated, and therefore potentially violent, transborder trade. Concluding the first part of the book, "A View from Below" by Musifiky Mwanasali discusses the informal trade in the African Great Lakes region where the Congolese government has lost control of its borders and rebels and military units from neighboring countries are actively involved in transhorder trade. In such circumstances, ending the complicity of commercialized paramilitaries and their business associates becomes imperative.

In the second part of the book, four contributors attempt to outline and discuss policies designed to confront economic agendas in civil wars. Virginia Gambda and Richard Cornwell discuss the importance of the weapons trade and the scope for its regulation in the context of the continuing Angolan conflict financed by oil and diamonds. They recognize that the scale of the problem overwhelms the international diplomatic and security framework. Yet, the self-interested economic agendas of foreign powers and oil corporations are also evident in their unwillingness to regulate this sector. Samuel Porteous, in his contribution on "Targeted Financial Sanctions," examines the "last best alternative" to military intervention: sanctions directly targeted at the financial interests of individuals and companies within or associated with the leadership. Coming out of the so-called "Interlaken Process," targeted sanctions have made much progress in terms of definition and implementation despite many practical difficulties.

The monitoring of smart sanctions by UN expert panels represents further progress in that direction, although it has so far led to nothing other than sometimes inaccurate "naming and shaming." Following denunciations by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and by the United Nations, the global certification of rough diamonds to prevent the laundering of "conflict diamonds" is an excellent, if limited, example in which industry, governments, and NGOs have come together to regulate an industry implicated in at least four wars in Africa. Similar measures of transparency and accountability are urgently needed in the timber and oil sectors, which are also highly involved in war economies. More broadly, the International Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism opens the possibility of the indictment of businesses financing war criminals, whether rebels or governments. In the last chapter, Tom Farer remarks that despite recent progress, international law is unlikely to buy peace in the short ter m. In his view, such regulation would not deter belligerents from abusing populations and might perversely sharpen their insistence on staying in power.

The prominence Berdal and Malone give to economic agendas fits well with the debasement of political ideologies associated with the collapse of communism. Even the growth of nationalism and radical Islam has been more than tainted with the "greed motive" in some areas of conflict, such as Algeria or Bosnia. Though somewhat simplistic, the interpretation of war as "greed-driven'' casts valuable light on one of the key functions of violence. It also informs new international initiatives targeted directly at the interests of rulers and their business associates rather than at states and their populations. However, blindly dismissing the multifaceted dimensions of grievances carries the risk of ignoring the often legitimate content of armed dissent. Curtailing the economic opportunities of belligerents may be a short-term priority. Only by ending the political and economic marginalization of aggrieved populations can peace be achieved in the long term.

PHILIPPE LE BILLON is a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Assistant Professor at the Liu Centre, University of British Columbia.