Where Does Conflict Happen?

The poorest, least developed, and least governed countries and regions in the world are the most prone to violent conflict right? Perhaps not. 

"Asia has by far the highest number of conflicts, and the longest running conflicts," according to according to a new study of subnational conflict on the continent from the Asia Foundation. The authors, Thomas Parks, Nat Colletta, Ben Oppenheim, identified 26 subnational conflicts, ranging from Kashmir to Aceh to southern Thailand, affecting 50 percent of the countries in South and Southeast Asia between 1992 and 2012. But when you look at where these conflicts are taking place, a lot of preconceived notions about the relationship between development and violence don’t hold seem to hold up. 

For one thing, the authors find that "it is clear that economic development at the national level has little or no impact on subnational conflict in Asia," and the majority of conflicts actually took place in middle-income countries.

The relationship between national-level state capacity and conflict also isn’t as clear as you might think. Using scores from FP and the Fund For Peace’s Failed States Index, the authors find that "While the weakest capacity states have the highest frequency of subnational conflict occurrence, most ofthe subnational conflicts in the region are found in moderate capacity states, such as Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and India."

Regions where conflicts occur do tend to be poorer than the rest of their countries, though "in a few cases, notably the conflict areas in India, poverty rates are actually lower than the national average."

On other development indicators, the disparity doesn’t seem to be that great. For instance, "for infant mortality rates, the majority of conflict areas are within 10% of the national average or better than the national average". Conflict areas are also generally equivalent or better than the national average" in terms of literacy.

It’s also not the case that conflict areas are underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure:

In southern Thailand, for example, 64.2% of villages have all-season roads, a percentage which is well above the national average of 50.7%, and the average for other border provinces (49.2%). Aceh has similarly high levels of road infrastructure, with nearly double the national average for total length of road per land area. In India, most of the conflict-affected provinces are above the national average for road length per land area.

So what does distinguish conflict-prone areas? The main factors seem to be geographic and cultural rather than economic. "Subnational conflicts are primarily found in remote, border regions of the country that are home to ethnic minority populations with a history of autonomous self-governance," the authors write.

It’s possible these findings only apply to Asia, though as Overseas Development Institute’s Marta Foresti writes in a blog post on the report at the Lowy Interpreter, "these were also the factors underpinning recent violence and conflicts in relatively stable African countries such as Mali and Kenya."

While it’s often comforting to think that measures human well-being all rise or fall together, it doesn’t seem to be the reality here.