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2016 | Buch

Development Strategies and Violence Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Development Strategies and Inter-Group Violence

Insights on Conflict-Sensitive Development

verfasst von: William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

Buchreihe : Politics, Economics, and Inclusive Development

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Although many scholars and practitioners recognize that development and conflict are intertwined, there is much less understanding of the mechanisms behind these linkages. This book takes a new approach by critically examining how various development strategies provoke or help prevent intrastate violence, based on cases from all developing regions.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

How to Think about Connections between Development Strategies and Conflict

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Development Strategies and Violence
Abstract
Can economic development initiatives promote and preserve peace within nations? The pessimists say no—development inevitably benefits some more than others, leading to resentment and perceptions of exploitation. Historically, development has been accompanied by violence among various groups with different collective identities (class, ethnicity, religion, or territorial origin). Property rights come to be contested. The subordinate groups try to wrest land and wealth away from the privileged groups, who often retaliate. The privileged struggle for more, and may collaborate in repression in order to protect their assets. The optimists say yes, of course—the economically developed countries, with few exceptions, clearly face less violence than the “bottom billion.” The pessimists respond that developed countries prospered over the bodies and fortunes of the losers and that they are still involved in conflicts all over the world. They also argue that some nations fail to develop, in part because of the violence triggered by development. Pro-growth advocates counter that economic stagnation triggers turmoil as well.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 2. Psychology of Conflict and Development
Abstract
Any policy analyst or policymaker dedicated to conflict-sensitive development would have to consider the psychology of reactions to development policies. This chapter examines how psychological mechanisms can help to explain levels of inter-group conflict, and how to apply these insights in designing conflict-sensitive development strategies. The mechanisms are complementary rather than competing, as no single theory can speak to all of the contextual nuances or the wide range of development policies. We explore the psychological elements—predispositions, perceptions, expectations, group identities, and other beliefs and attitudes—that mediate between development strategies and inter-group conflict. Unlike most analyses of the psychological constructs associated with violent conflict, we look specifically at the cognitive and motivational factors that are influenced by consequences of economic development initiatives: magnitudes and changes of contestable assets, income inequalities, coincidence of economic roles and economic variations with ethnic or religious differences, and so on. Even if the expected economic consequences of development initiatives do not materialize, the individual and group perceptions of the motives and possible consequences of adverse impacts such as expropriation, exclusion, or other unfair treatments have important psychological impacts on the predispositions to peace or conflict. By linking development strategies to their socioeconomic outcomes as well as to the perceptions of their motivations and potential effects, we can map them onto the specific conflict-relevant behaviors mediated by psychological mechanisms.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya

Varieties and Impacts of Development Strategies

Frontmatter
Chapter 3. The Perils of Liberalization: Prices, Market Access, and privatization
Abstract
Restructuring economic institutions spans a broad range of reforms, with myriad combinations favoring or disfavoring various groups, triggering divergent views of its fairness. Each variation may also give the impression that the government is favoring particular groups, and induce people to view themselves or others as unified entities because of what they assume is uniform treatment. This chapter focuses on the fundamental strategies of freeing prices, opening market access, and privatizing sectors previously reserved to the state. Chapter 4 will cover the remaining “macro” aspects of economic strategies—austerity measures, interest rates, tax rates, and exchange rates—that may involve less structural change but nonetheless can have profound impacts on the distribution of benefits and the bases for conflict.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 4. Pitfalls of Macroeconomic Decisions
Abstract
The “three key tools” of macroeconomic policy are fiscal policy (revenue generation and spending), monetary policy, and exchange rate policy (Bird 2001, 37)1. The money supply and the volume of government spending together are the major instruments that governments use to manipulate the degree of overall economic activity; the volume of sustainable government spending in most countries depends crucially on taxation.2 Exchange-rate policy is a major determinant of the balance of imports and exports and the profitability of subsectors involved in import and export.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 5. Grabbing Assets and Opportunities
Abstract
This chapter focuses on overt, explicit policy initiatives to redistribute income and wealth. To be sure, almost all economic policies have some redistributive impacts. In the short run, at least, both regulation and spending policies have winners and losers: regulations limit the behavior of some at the expense of others; budget allocations require taxation or diversion of allocations from one set of actors to another. The promotion of one sector or region entails relative neglect of others. The fundamental economic parameters, such as exchange rates, tax rates, and interest rates, strongly influence the comparative prosperity of importers versus exporters, the urban sector versus the rural sector, and so on. Therefore, the examination of “redistributive policies” as a general category would not be useful. However, a much smaller subset of economic policies is explicitly and primarily redistributive. Because of the strong potential of these overtly redistributive policies to provoke conflict, it is worth focusing separately on them.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 6. Favoring Sectors
Abstract
Government actions to stimulate the production of particular goods and services in specific sectors (industry, agriculture, social services, infrastructure, etc.) have had major impacts on which groups are favored or disadvantaged, placated or threatened, as well as on general societal stability. Sectoral policies, that is, the policies that favor related types of activities, have been among the most debated in the modern history of development economics. These sectoral strategies are also thoroughly intertwined with many other policy dimensions and categorizations covered in other chapters.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 7. Social Services and Societal Fragility
Abstract
During recent decades, social policies in the developing world have undergone significant changes. Education and health care promotion and reforms, expansion of social protection and other social-service investments have taken prominent place on the agendas of domestic policymakers and international development agencies—all becoming important areas to apply principles of conflict sensitivity.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 8. Challenges of Regional Development
Abstract
Economic development strategies often have a very important spatial dimension. Many strategies target a particular region within the country, to develop the economy of that region, to move people from other regions to the target region, or both. This chapter focuses on the potential consequences of explicit, large-scale efforts to develop the economies of target regions. Overt resettlement strategies, by which the government requires or strongly promotes the relocation of populations from particular regions, are the focus of chapter 10, while recognizing that any regional development strategy discussed in this chapter can prompt migrations into the target region.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 9. Confrontations over Natural Resources
Abstract
Access to natural resources1 is often perceived among the major security risks of the twenty-first century. Although conventional wisdom suggests that natural resources should sustain broad-based development, there is a large body of academic literature that states otherwise. Using econometric specifications and selected case studies, some scholars claim that resource-rich countries tend to perform comparatively worse in economic growth, per capita income (Dobbs et al. 2013), various indicators of human welfare (Bulte, Damania, and Deacon 2005), and social development (Carmignani and Avom 2010; IMF 2012); they are also more prone to civil conflict (Ross 2004c; Ross 2006) and nondemocratic tendencies (Ross 2001). Since the birth of the “resource curse” hypothesis in the 1990s, concerns over the role of resources in development and security expanded, which has been reflected in the statements, policy documents, and practical actions of international organizations, NGOs, and development agencies. In this chapter, we spotlight natural resource promotion as one possible development strategy that can be assessed within our four-dimensional framework.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 10. Resettlement Strategies: For Better or for Worse
Abstract
High human mobility is a major feature of twenty-first century development. Every year, millions of people leave their homes, whether voluntarily or under-duress. Some resettlements place people in economically or environmentally superior locations. However, in 2014, about 60 million people were forcibly displaced due to conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations (UNHCR 2015, 2). This figure included 38.2 million internally displaced persons—the highest number ever recorded (UNHCR 2015, 23). Conflict reportedly accounts for 60 percent of forced migration; the numbers of people displaced by natural and human-made disasters have been rising over the last two decades with fluctuations from 19.3 million (2014) to over 43 million (2010). Millions more are displaced every year by development initiatives (dam construction and other large-scale infrastructure projects, urban renewal, mining, deforestation, and conservation projects). Cernea and Mathur (2008) estimate that around 15 million people are displaced for “development” annually; others pose that development projects are the single-largest cause of forced migration (Oliver-Smith 2009; Pankhurst and Piquet 2009, 250; Stanley 2004).
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Chapter 11. Decentralization: Shifting the Locus of Conflict
Abstract
Since the 1990s, decentralization has been one of the most prominent development strategies all over the world. Therefore, this chapter deals with the potential and observed outcomes of the various forms of decentralization strategy with particular emphasis on its impact on inter-group violence. We start with identifying the main forms and characteristics of decentralization and exploring the rationales behind its variants. We explore the ways in which decentralization may serve as a conflict-deterring strategy or how it may exacerbate conflict. Finally, we suggest some insights on conflict-sensitive approaches to designing and implementing decentralization initiatives.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya

Connections and Conclusions

Frontmatter
Chapter 12. Development-Violence Pathways
Abstract
To do a more comprehensive job of identifying the pathways connecting economic development to inter-group relations, it is helpful to view them according to the functions of the policy process and their immediate and long-term impact on groups’ economic roles, their resources and relative power, and their perceptions of threats and opportunities.
William Ascher, Natalia Mirovitskaya
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Development Strategies and Inter-Group Violence
verfasst von
William Ascher
Natalia Mirovitskaya
Copyright-Jahr
2016
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan US
Electronic ISBN
978-1-137-55512-0
Print ISBN
978-1-349-55841-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137555120