Insurgency and Credible Commitment in Autocracies and Democracies [electronic resource] / Keefer, Philip
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TextPublication details: Washington, D.C., The World Bank, 2007Description: 1 online resource (29 p.)Subject(s): Armed Conflict | Citizen | Citizens | Civil War | Conflict and Development | Emerging Markets | Ethnic Groups | Finance and Financial Sector Development | Financial Literacy | Governance | Health, Nutrition and Population | Labor Policies | Natural Resources | Parliamentary Government | Policies | Policy | Policy Research | Policy Research Working Paper | Political Parties | Political Systems and Analysis | Politics and Government | Popular Support | Population | Population Policies | Post Conflict Reconstruction | Private Sector Development | Progress | Public Information | Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures | Quality of Education | Secondary School | Segments of Society | Social Conditions | Social Conflict and Violence | Social Development | Social Protections and Labor | WarsAdditional physical formats: Keefer, Philip.: Insurgency and Credible Commitment in Autocracies and Democracies.Online resources: Click here to access online Abstract: This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.
This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.
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