Post-Conflict Risks

@article{citeulike:2931032, abstract = {Post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and reduction of the risk of a recurring conflict. Aid and policy reforms have been found to be effective in economic recovery. In this article, the authors concentrate on the other challenge -- risk reduction. The post-conflict peace is typically fragile: nearly half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses. The authors find that economic development substantially reduces risks, but it takes a long time. They also find evidence that UN peacekeeping expenditures significantly reduce the risk of renewed war. The effect is large: doubling expenditure reduces the risk from 40\% to 31\%. In contrast to these results, the authors cannot find any systematic influence of elections on the reduction of war risk. Therefore, post-conflict elections should be promoted as intrinsically desirable rather than as mechanisms for increasing the durability of the post-conflict peace. Based on these results, the authors suggest that peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining a gradual economic recovery, with political design playing a somewhat subsidiary role. Since there is a relationship between the severity of post-conflict risks and the level of income at the end of the conflict, this provides a clear and uncontroversial principle for resource allocation: resources per capita should be approximately inversely proportional to the level of income in the post-conflict country. 10.1177/0022343308091356}, author = {Collier, Paul and Hoeffler, Anke and Soderbom, Mans }, citeulike-article-id = {2931032}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343308091356}, journal = {Journal of Peace Research}, keywords = {conflict, democracy, elections, insecurity, post-conflict, risk, transition, violence, war}, month = {July}, number = {4}, pages = {461--478}, posted-at = {2008-06-26 13:56:45}, priority = {2}, title = {Post-Conflict Risks}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343308091356}, volume = {45}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2931032 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2931032 TI - Post-Conflict Risks JF - Journal of Peace Research VL - 45 IS - 4 SP - 461 EP - 478 N2 - Post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and reduction of the risk of a recurring conflict. Aid and policy reforms have been found to be effective in economic recovery. In this article, the authors concentrate on the other challenge -- risk reduction. The post-conflict peace is typically fragile: nearly half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses. The authors find that economic development substantially reduces risks, but it takes a long time. They also find evidence that UN peacekeeping expenditures significantly reduce the risk of renewed war. The effect is large: doubling expenditure reduces the risk from 40% to 31%. In contrast to these results, the authors cannot find any systematic influence of elections on the reduction of war risk. Therefore, post-conflict elections should be promoted as intrinsically desirable rather than as mechanisms for increasing the durability of the post-conflict peace. Based on these results, the authors suggest that peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining a gradual economic recovery, with political design playing a somewhat subsidiary role. Since there is a relationship between the severity of post-conflict risks and the level of income at the end of the conflict, this provides a clear and uncontroversial principle for resource allocation: resources per capita should be approximately inversely proportional to the level of income in the post-conflict country. 10.1177/0022343308091356 KW - conflict KW - democracy KW - elections KW - insecurity KW - post-conflict KW - risk KW - transition KW - violence KW - war AU - Collier, Paul AU - Hoeffler, Anke AU - Soderbom, Mans PY - 2008/07/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343308091356 ER -