Jobs, Unemployment and Violence - Christopher Cramer
Channel: GSDRC
Date: 2015-04-24

This video accompanies the GSDRC Professional Development Reading pack on Jobs, Unemployment and Violence, available at: http://www.gsdrc.org/professional-dev/jobs-unemployment-and-violence/

The notion that unemployment is a strong probable cause or motivating factor behind violence and violent conflict is remarkably pervasive in international development. It is believed that unemployment triggers participation in insurgencies, prompts people to join violent gangs, drives people to extremism, and that it is the primary reason behind domestic violence. More remarkable is that this idea is based more on intuition and assumption than on evidence. 

Christopher Cramer is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at SOAS, University of London. He is a Vice-Chair of the Royal Africa Society and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE). He works on violence, war and peace (e.g. ‘Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries’, C. Hurst & Co., 2006); on Fairtrade and rural labour markets (see www.ftepr.org); and is currently developing research on an African mega-project hydro-power scheme. He designed and launched the SOAS MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development in 2000.