Title : The Frightful Inadequacy of Most of the Statistics: a critique of Collier and Hoeffler on causes of civil war
Discussion Paper No : 11 (series 1)
Author(s) : Laurie Nathan
Date : September 2005
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Abstract: Over the past five
years numerous cross-national statistical studies have been
conducted on the causes of civil war. The most influential
studies have been those by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler.Their
work has been widely cited in international reports on security
and stability. This paper offers a critique of their work,
arguing that their research is filled with empirical,
methodological and theoretical problems that lead to unreliable
results and unjustified conclusions. Their most prominent
finding - that dependence on natural resources heightens a
country's risk of war because it affords rebels an opportunity
for extortion - is not based on any evidence of rebel behaviour;
it is an inference drawn from a correlation between the onset of
civil war and the ratio of primary commodity exports to GDP. To
borrow a felicitous phrase from Keynes, the Collier and Hoeffler
model suffers from 'a frightful inadequacy of most of the
statistics'.