Natural resource rents and political violence: The role of institutional accountability

Natural resource abundance has been linked to major violent conflicts in the world. Collier and Hoeffler [Collier, P., and A. Hoeffler. 1998. “On Economic Causes of Civil war.” Oxford Economic Papers 50 (4): 563–573. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/50.4.563] were the first to discuss distributional concerns among different groups and their potential to instigate violence in the presence of natural resources. We have considered the dynamics between the dominant and minority groups in determining the shares in natural resources, and then have adapted the framework by Elbadawi and Soto [Elbadawi, I. A., and R. Soto. 2015. “Resource Rents, Institutions, and Violent Civil Conflicts.” Defence and Peace Economics 26 (1): 89–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2013.848579] for explaining the motivation for exploitation and rebellion. We modified the game by incorporating institutional cost into the baseline analysis. The derived outcomes depict that institutional accountability for exploitation and aggression can be instrumental in neutralising the effect of natural resource rents on political violence. Further, the relationship is also explored empirically for a sample of 80 countries from 1990 to 2021. The empirical analysis demonstrates the importance of institutional accountability in the mitigation of political violence, while acknowledging that the current state of political constraints is insufficient.