The proposition that democracies are more peaceful than autocracies has spawned a huge literature. Much of the relevant quantitative research has shown that democracies indeed rarely, if ever, fight each other, although they are not necessarily less bellicose than autocracies in general. This...

NGO's with an interest in peace and development in Africa documented the role of diamonds in conflict while soci scientists were researching and modeling the role of natural resources in long-standing violent conflicts. Journalists described what was happening on the ground. The United Nations...

That military expenditure and conflict have adverse consequences for development is unsurprising but important. The policy challenge is to reduce them. I have suggested that substantial components of military expenditure could be reduced without jeopardizing security interests. Military...

Can a country achieve its development goals or, at least, its economic growth goals when it faces forty years of war? Angola's case serves as a paradigmatic example to answer this question. From 1961 to 1974, Angolans opposed Portuguese colonial rule by violent, revolutionary struggle. But from...

The article discusses some of the economic effects of war in northern Mozambique. It indicates how the historical and structural features of the economy of northern Mozambique restricted post-war reconstruction and post-war poverty alleviation. These features include the dominance of only a few...

The greatest contribution that economics can make to banishing war lies in creating conditions that help keep the peace, especially in the long run. The problem is to identify the set of conditions that will generate positive incentives for nations to keep the peace and work out a set of...

Focused around the greed and/or grievance theses, a large part of the economics of conflict literature concerns itself with civil war. This article provides socioeconomic perspectives on contemporary conflict in Indonesia. Three categories of violent conflict in the country are separatist...

Current military doctrine emphasizes the importance of development spending in reducing insurgent violence. Using data from three distinct development programs, the Afghan National Solidarity Program, USAID’s Local Governance and Community Development Program, and the U.S. military's...

Using the Uppsala Conflict Data Program's Conflict Termination Dataset, 1946-2007, we investigate determinants of war duration—how long war lasts before the onset of peace. We provide an exposition of the nature of the data and of the transformations statistical issues involved in quantifying...

Considering that some eighty countries have a problem with land mines, and observing the consequential effects on their economies, the amount of money available for the task of clearance is miserly. Th article discusses land mine types and uses, and the excruciating work and cost involved in...