Resources and Governance in Sierra Leone’s Civil War
Published in Journal of Development Studies: 2017, 53(2), 278-294.
34 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2020
Date Written: September 7, 2015
Abstract
We empirically investigate the role of natural resources, and bad governance in explaining variation in the intensity of conflict during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone. As a proxy for governance quality we exploit exogenous variation in political competition at the level of the chieftaincy. As a proxy for resources we use data on the location of pre-war mining sites. Our main result is that neither governance nor resources robustly explains the onset or duration of violence during the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Keywords: Conflict, Governance, Natural resources, Sierra Leone
JEL Classification: D74, O13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation