On the Links between Violent Conflict and Household Poverty: How Much Do We Really Know?
Patricia Justino (2007)
In what ways does violent conflict impact on poor people’s lives? How far does poverty act as a trigger for violent conflict?
This MICROCON Working Paper makes use of new micro-level research findings on the relationship between poverty and conflict to propose a framework to understand how violent conflict can lead to or exacerbate household poverty. It also assesses the potential impact of household poverty on conflict. The paper focuses on individual, household and group interactions leading to and resulting from violent conflict that impact on poverty, exclusion and deprivation. It argues that regional, national and international perspectives make inadequate concession to the role of individual and group interactions, and their links with social norms that encourage some groups to be violent, while discouraging others from violence.
The paper emphasises that:
Violent conflicts are likely to have a considerable negative impact on individual and household’s economic position through three key self-reinforcing mechanisms: impact on assets and livelihoods; education and health effects; and through displacement and the breakdown of socioeconomic networks.
Poverty may sometimes act as a trigger for violent conflict due to lack of choice of those involved, widespread social discontent amongst different population groups and the search for better socio-economic opportunities. Some forms of violent conflict have created new opportunities for some poor populations.
The paper concludes that
Efforts at gathering further micro-level empirical evidence are much needed, to understand reasons for group mobilisation from the perspectives of leaders and of those who are mobilised.
Operationalising these notions of conflict processes requires the development of new databases to balance the traditional security studies on the state and state agency, and more appropriate methodologies.
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