Population size, concentration, and civil war
Subtitle: a geographically disaggregated analysis
Contributors: Hegre, Håvard; World Bank
Series: Post-conflict transitions working paper -- no. 16; World Bank policy research working paper -- 4243; Policy research working papers (Online) -- 4243.; Post-conflict transitions working paper -- no. 16.
Published: 2007
Language: eng
Subjects: Civil war; Population density; War; Causes; Size of States
Description: Summary: Why do larger countries have more armed conflict? This paper surveys three sets of hypotheses forwarded in the conflict literature regarding the relationship between the size and location of population groups: Hypotheses based on pure population mass, on distances, on population concentrations, and some residual state-level characteristics. The hypotheses are tested on a new dataset-ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset)-which disaggregates internal conflicts into individual events. The analysis covers 14 countries in Central Africa. The conflict event data are juxtaposed with geographically disaggregated data on populations, distance to capitals, borders, and road networks. The paper develops a statistical method to analyze this type of data. The analysis confirms several of the hypotheses.
Notes: Viewed on (June 11. 2007).