Inequality, conflict, and policy: a
review of some MICROCON findings
By Frances Stewart, drawing on the
work of Patricia Justino,
S.M.Murshed and Z. Tadjoeddin
Many types of violence
• Domestic: 40-70% of female homicides and many
more incidents
• Criminal: est. over 500,000 p.. globally
• Routine: no global estimates
• Riots: no global estimates
• Civil wars: battle deaths, 30,460; plus indirect
105,000 to 1 million, p.a. globally
• Genocides: 290,000, average 1955-2001
• Terrorism: 12,000 – 21,000, 2006.
2
Focus of microcon research
•
•
•
•
Civil war and genocide compared
Riots in India
Routine violence
Global inequalities and terrorism.
• Review some findings and policy implications
3
Civil war and genocide research
1. What is difference?
1. Scale
2. Role of state
3. Motive
4. [and also body of research]
4
Contributory factors
Civil war
Genocide/politicide/democide/mass killings
Demography
Fractionalisation
Little evidence as an independent Same
factor-most conflict at intermediate
levels of fractionalisation
High proportion of youth
Correlation, associated with lack of Not investigated
employment opportunities
Economic factors
Economic stagnation
Argued, little evidence
Same
Low national per capita incomes
Strong evidence that raises risks
Intermediate levels of per capita income
more risky
Rent-seeking opportunities
Argued, but evidence not strong
Same
Horizontal inequalities
Strong evidence of association
Suggested and some evidence but not
investigated very systematically
5
Political factors
Opportunity structure and political
upheaval
Strongly argued -evidence,
including transitions
Systematic evidence, including ongoing civil
war
Regime type
Most incidence in ‘intermediate’
regimes and regimes in transition
Most incidence in authoritarian regimes
Constitutional design: checks and
balances and decentralisation
Some (mixed) evidence that more
decentralisation reduces conflict
propensity
No evidence
Marginality from the world system
No association with conflict onset - Some evidence shows more marginality
greater global integration
increases conflict and no relationship
associated with lower probability of
conflict presence. Direction of
causality in question.
Political horizontal
inequalities/political exclusion
Strong evidence especially if
associated with socio-economic
inequalities
Evidence from case histories and some
econometric evidence
History of past conflict/genocide
Strong statistical evidence (not
summarised above)
Strong statistical evidence (not summarised
above)
6
In summary
1. Similarities:
1. In both cases past history of civil war predisposes,
almost invariable condition for genocide.
2. Demography not important unless accompanied by
inequalities
3. Inequalities are important, especially horizontal
(group); political exclusion especially important for
genocide (not much research on economic).
2. Differences:
1. Level of per capita income
2. Regime type
7
Civil unrest in India
• clashes ‘between different castes, and between
opposite ethnic and religious interests (largely
between Hindu and Muslim communities), as a
response to disparities in the distribution of
employment conditions, access to land and other
assets, use of and access to social services and
access to institutional power and legal
institutions’ (Justino 2007: 18).
• Did not turn into civil war, but ‘solved’ (often
temporarily_ buy police action or social
expenditure.
8
Justino model
• Police action reduces violence in short term, but
subsequently may cause more violence.
• Redistributory expenditure (reducing inequality)
reduces violence propensity permanently.
• Hence: Ct = Ct-1 – σPt + λP t-1 + θ[∆Y A[t-1] - Tt-1]
[Ct, Ct-1 violence at time t, t-1; Pt + P t-1 , policing at
t, t-1; ∆Y A[t-1] increase in income of richer group
in t-1; and Tt-1 is transfer to the poor group as a
result of social expenditure at t-1.
9
Econometric results
• 1. Redistributive transfers associated with decreases in civil unrest.
The number of riots decrease by 0.3-0.4% for each extra rupee
spent on social services in period t-1. The results are stronger for
models taking into account endogeneity.
• 2. In all models, the current use of police reduces conflict, whereas
generally the coefficient for lagged policing is positive. ‘The
coefficients show that on average across the main 14 states, India
needs to hire 20 more policemen in order to have one less riot per
year…whereas every additional 25 policemen used in each period
will result in one additional riot five years later.’ (Justino, 2007: 30).
• Other factors systematically significantly related to civil unrest:
– levels of past unrest
– poverty headcount,
– levels of state income.
• Social expenditure is cheaper approach to solving riots than police
action
10
Routine violence in Indonesia
(Murshed and Tadjoeddin (2008).
• ‘Routine violence’ or ‘everyday’ violence is
violence that recurs on a regular basis.
• ‘all types of collective violence outside the ethnocommunal and separatist forms’.
• ‘does not have the explicit political aim of
overthrowing the state as in the case of civil war,
or the emasculation of a rival group as in the case
of ethno-communal violence. It is not simply
crime, although it could have criminal
dimensions’
11
Increased sharply in Indonesia from 1995, and subsided after 2000
12
Decentralisation and routine violence
• Massive decentralisation in Indoensia from
2001. Public expenditure accounted for by
provinces and districts 20% 1999; 26% 2001;
37% 2007.
• Argued that routine violence is associated
with distrust of state; may decrease with
decentralisation
13
Econometric investigation
• Murshed and Tadjoeddin take two measures of
decentralisation (fiscal decentralisation; and size
of local government) and relate this to routine
violence, using two models.
• Find highly significant effect of decentralisation,
associated with declining violence across districts
for both measures of decentralisation.
• District income per capita of district positive on
violence (attributed to rising aspirations), and
income squared negative.
14
Global violence and global inequalities
• Stewart (2009) provides evidence for
systematic Muslim/non-Muslim inequalities,
in economic and political arenas:
– Within Western countries, with evidence for UK,
Netherlands and France
– Within Asian and African countries
– Globally between Muslim dominated and nonMuslim countries.
15
Other evidence to suggest these inequalities are
one factor behind global tensions
• Strong connections among Muslims globally –
Via family contacts and remittances; education and
training; aid and finance; religion, media and
global civil society.
• Common perceptions
16
Differences in perceptions, Muslims versus others
Nigerian Christians
Nigerian Muslims
Turkey
Pakistan
Responsibility for lack of Muslim
country prosperity: Islamic
fundamentalism - Western policies
Indonesia
country/group
Jordan
Egypt
Why M/W relations are bad: Muslim
responsibility-Westerners
Spanish Muslims
German Muslims
French Muslims
British Muslims
Spain
Russia
Germany
France
Britain
US
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
% of population blaming Westerners less % blaming Muslims
80
17
Conclusion from global inequalities
• Its ‘all connected’[ Moazzam – Guantanamo
Bay detainee]
• Global inequalities facilitate mobilisation.
• Policy implications for developed countries –
for domestic distribution as well as aid.
18
Summary of findings:
1. Inequalities a factor in many types of violence
• Gender violence – evidence elsewhere for within family
inequalities
• Criminality – evidence elsewhere for vertical inequality
• Civil war –evidence summarised here for horizontal
inequality, political and economic
• Genocide – evidence summarised here for horizontal
inequalities, political and economic
• Riots – some evidence produced here for economic
• Routine violence – economic inequalities not directly
investigated but implicit conclusions about political
inequalities
• Global terrorism: suggestive evidence produced here,
political and economic.
19
2. Development and poverty?
• Civil war literature finds low development
predisposing factor, but not genocide
literature.
• Justino and Murshed and Tadjoeddin find
higher per capita incomes associated with
more violence
• But Justino finds higher poverty raises risk of
violence.
20
Policy implications
1. Socio-economic
• Policies towards inequalities –high priority.
• Justino shows redistributionary expenditure is
cheaper and more effective than expenditure on
police. Would be good to duplicate research for
military expenditure globally. [NB USAID to
Pakistan 70% of military, 30% development)
• Development that is not inclusive (reducing
inequalities and poverty) may actually increase
violence propensity in short term.
21
Economic redistribution: many types of
policy
• Anti-discrimination law and enforcement of
Human Rights
• Social expenditure and taxation
• Anti-poverty programmes
• Affirmative action programmes
• Distribution of infrastructural expenditure
22
Policy implications
2. Political
•
•
•
•
Political inclusion high priority.
Decentralisation can play important role.
But also need national power sharing.
Autocratic systems can maintain stability for long
periods but (a) more likely to be genocidal; and
(b) violence often erupts during transition.
• Therefore careful moves to power-sharing
democracies needed to avoid violence
domestically.
23