Abstract
Conflict in Africa has been explained by factors related to greed and grievances. These are insufficient to initiate conflict in the absence of institutional failure or a degenerating social contract which may be heightened by the lack of economic growth. I emphasize the inseparability between economics and politics, drawing out the similarities between the causes of conflict and the reasons for the lack of sustained growth both of which require institutional malfunctioning. The centrality of reducing inequalities, particularly categorical inequalities between groups based on unequal access to productive assets such as land, education, as well as individual inequality of opportunity, cannot be overemphasized. The democratic transition has the potential of producing violence as people have greater scope for venting dissatisfaction, especially when unaccompanied by egalitarian and pro-poor economic progress. The relationship between growth and conflict is non-linear; lack of growth and the poverty it produces engenders conflict. Equally rapid growth accompanied by heightening inequality can also cause conflict.
This paper draws on my unpublished background paper prepared for African Development Bank’s annual report (Murshed 2008). I wish to thank Muhammad Badiuzzaman for excellent research assistance.
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Notes
- 1.
In many respects, there has been a reversal of fortunes. At the time of independence (1960s) most African nations were ahead of the average East Asian country in real per capita income terms (see Easterly and Levine 1997).
- 2.
The expressions originate in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s State of the Union address to Congress on 6 January 1941 (see http://www.Fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od4frees.html).
- 3.
In the short-run the determinants of growth are economic policies to foster capital and skilled labor accumulation.
- 4.
Note, however, that historical evidence regarding natural resource abundance suggests that many of these countries like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have done well in the past. The latest evidence for the period following the Cold War is also mixed (see Murshed et al. 2015).
- 5.
The authors argue that the mortality rates amongst Europeans are what determined whether they settled a colony or not.
- 6.
ICRG data is missing for many African nations.
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Murshed, S.M. (2016). The Conflict-Growth Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa. In: Heshmati, A. (eds) Economic Integration, Currency Union, and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in East Africa. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30432-8_12
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