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

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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.

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Focus of microcon research

• Civil war and genocide compared• Riots in India• Routine violence• Global inequalities and terrorism.

• Review some findings and policy implications

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Civil war and genocide research

1. What is difference?1. Scale2. Role of state3. Motive

4. [and also body of research]

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Contributory factors Civil war Genocide/politicide/democide/mass killings

Demography

Fractionalisation Little evidence as an independent factor-most conflict at intermediate levels of fractionalisation

Same

High proportion of youth Correlation, associated with lack of employment opportunities

Not investigated

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

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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 -greater global integration associated with lower probability of conflict presence. Direction of causality in question.

Some evidence shows more marginality increases conflict and no relationship

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)

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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

inequalities3. Inequalities are important, especially horizontal (group);

political exclusion especially important for genocide (not much research on economic).

2. Differences:1. Level of per capita income2. Regime type

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 ethno-communal 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’

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Increased sharply in Indonesia from 1995, and subsided after 2000

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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

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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.

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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 non-

Muslim countries.

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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

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US

Britain

France

Germany

Russia

Spain

British Muslims

French Muslims

German Muslims

Spanish Muslims

Egypt

Jordan

Indonesia

Pakistan

Turkey

Nigerian Muslims

Nigerian Christians

-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80

Differences in perceptions, Muslims versus others

Responsibility for lack of Muslim country prosperity: Islamic fun-damentalism - Western policies

Why M/W relations are bad: Muslim responsibility-Westerners

% of population blaming Westerners less % blaming Muslims

coun

try/

grou

p

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Policy implications1. 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.

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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

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Policy implications2. 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.