Environment and Security
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When looking at the processes behind conflict it is es-
sential to identify players with an incentive for violence.
They need to access resources that facilitate mobilization
and expansion of violence.
What is critical is not whether
people actually have a reason to commit violence, but
what enables them to carry it out under particular circum-
stances
. In their research, Collier and Hoeffler (2001) argue
that conflict may be explained either by
grievance or by
greed
. They conclude that if we want to understand the
causes of contemporary civil wars we should focus less
on explanations based on grievances and look instead at
the greed of those who have an interest in using violence
to achieve their goals. Even when people have reasons
to be unhappy about their situation, this does not mean
that their discontent escalates into violence. There should
be someone able to extract ‘economic’ profit in order for
violence to occur. Access to specific natural resources is
a factor that can motivate actors to use violence as means
of control (diamonds, oil, timber wars).
But society is not powerless when confronted with con-
flict. It has ways of dealing with it. Institutions, particularly
political institutions and civil society, can work to defuse
conflict situations or they can fuel discontent through poor
governance, corruption and inefficiency. Finally, regional
and global factors can increase or decrease the possibility
of conflict. When a variety of these factors are at work, there
will be windows of vulnerability, moments when events such
as elections, or even natural disasters, can trigger hostility
or even full-scale violence.
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