# **_Social spending_**

Azam (2001) observes that “the occurrence of civil conflict is intimately related to the failure of government to deliver the type of public expenditure that people want; i.e. with a strong redistributive component such as health and education”. In earlier work, he uses a game theoretical model that explicitly links redistributive policy adopted by states with domestic peace (Azam, 1995). Governments could thus also foster their legitimacy, and thereby reduce the risk of conflict, by signaling that they care about their population. This could be done in a variety of ways, such as increased spending for water sanitation, securing basic health needs, or providing a strong system of education (Stasavage, 2005).

Taydas and Peksen (2012) argue that spending resources in the form of social welfare policies leads to more loyalty and support from citizens, which increases the difficulty of rebel recruitment.<sup>11</sup> Through welfare policies that influence positively the living standards of citizens, governments can outspend the opposition, helping gain support from a broad segment of the population, co-opt political opposition, and decrease the incentives for organizing a rebellion. Social safety nets, transfers and investment in public goods show people that the state cares, and prevents disadvantaged members of society from falling below a certain level of poverty and experiencing absolute desperation. It has been argued that this strategy, namely government commitment to redistribution in favor of the poor, had been used by rulers in the West in the nineteenth century to increase their legitimacy and prevent revolutions (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2000).

Robins (2012) mentions that studies of the attitudes and priorities of conflict-affected people have concluded that the degree to which a state meets its citizens’ every day needs is an important component of their subjective assessment of its legitimacy. From this perspective, positive encounters with frontline service officials is argued to provide a source of legitimacy for the state, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected situations where the state was previously mistrusted, or outright feared (Brinkerhof, Wetterberg, and Dunn, 2012). Similarly, in his study in Medellin, Colombia, Guerrero (2011) finds that a quick upgrading of basic services (infrastructure, health, education) in the city’s less favored districts improved political support for and trust in government.

Taydas and Peksen (2012) also argue that social spending promotes economic development, thereby raising further the opportunity cost of rebellion. Government investment in human capital has a positive influence on social mobility, labor opportunities, and the distribution of

> 11 Hypotheses are tested using a dataset for 153 countries, 1975 - 2005. The same dependent variable is used as in Fjelde and de Soysa (2009). The independent variable is welfare spending which combines three sources of welfare (education, health and social security spending, as percentage of GDP). Statistical results with imputed data consistently show that welfare spending is negatively related to the onset of both armed conflict (25 battle deaths) as well as major civil war (1000 battle deaths).

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