What is it about?
This paper analyzes the relationship between inequality in land ownership and civil conflict onset. It finds that there is a significant positive relationship between total landholding inequality, which accounts for landlessness, and civil conflict. This is explained by levels of grievances among landless and land-poor rural populations. The relationship of conflict with concentration of land ownership, as measured by a land Gini, is shaped like an inverted `U'. Inequality correlates with an increasing likelihood of conflict, but as the concentration of landholdings reaches very high levels, the likelihood of conflict decreases with the formation of a small repressive class of landowners.
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Why is it important?
Prominent theories stress the role of economic grievances in promoting political instability and conflict. They often point to inequality in the ownership of land as a primary source of such grievances. However, cross-national empirical studies fail to confirm a link between unequal distributions of land and civil war. These findings, I contend, stem from problems in theorizing and measuring rural inequality. This paper addresses these problems and provides evidence that landholding inequality is an important underlying cause of civil war.
Perspectives
This paper addresses the lack of robust evidence linking vertical grievances at the national level to civil conflict onset. It finds that, when measured carefully, vertical inequality in landholdings is associated with civil war.
Henry Thomson
Arizona State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Rural Grievances, Landholding Inequality, and Civil Conflict, International Studies Quarterly, July 2016, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/isq/sqw023.
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