Cohesive Institutions and Political Violence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fetzer, Thiemo; Kyburz, Stephan
• 署名单位: University of Bonn; University of Bern
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01156
• 发表日期: 2024-01
• 页码: 133-150
• 关键词: NATURAL-RESOURCES; price shocks; CONFLICT; curse; OIL; windfalls; ETHNICITY; DEMOCRACY; votes; logic

摘要

Can revenue sharing of resource rents be a source of distributive conflict? Can cohesive institutions avoid such conflicts? We exploit exogenous variation in local government revenues and new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria to study these questions. We find a strong link between rents and conflict. Conflicts are highly organized and concentrated in districts and time periods with unelected local governments. Once local governments are elected these relationships are much weaker. We argue that elections produce more cohesive institutions that help limit distributional conflict between groups. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data.