Greed And Grievance Analysis

Before indicating difficulties, that may arise out of the presentation of greed and grievance as separated and even contradicting, some possible reasons why that narrative is applied at all will be discussed. Keen states regarding this, that “the tool drives the analysis instead the other way around”. This is not unrealistic, as by a closer examination it becomes clear that most proxies do fit into both lines of argumentation, but were squeezed by Collier and Hoeffler into the greed model, perhaps in order to justify economical interventions, liberalization and investments. One example for this is the proxy peace duration, which was used as indicator for low cost of conflict-specific capital, while it however also could be a proxy for the grievance-approach,

The purported causes of civil wars cannot be simply put into two boxes, because by doing this, ongoing dynamics leading up to the conflict are entirely ignored, which in fact causes an inaccurate understanding of the situation. Greed and grievance are probably rather reinforcing then conflicting (Nathan, Boix, other), by disregarding this correlation scholars do not see the whole picture and therefor may give poor policy advices: “A good doctor will need to get some idea of the nature of the disease before rushing to the medicine cabinet to pull out a remedy” (Keen). As for a doctor, it is also crucial for the international community to first understand dynamics and interactions driving/guiding a society into conflict before intervening to prevent this. Any measure, which is based on a decision, which was lacking profound and in-depth understanding of the nature of the conflict provoking environment, may even worsen the situation as it is based on a false diagnostic in the first place. Intervention measures of the IMF can serve as example. The greed and grievance study of 2004, as well as earlier papers of Collier and Hoeffler, were quite influential in financial institutions as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Firstly, this was due to the scholars’ role as World Bank researcher and secondly due to the fact that the results apparently provided evidence for the utility of financial means in the prevention of civil wars. In contrast to that Keen notes that “externally-imposed liberalisation schemes have often been a particular source of tension”. This assumption is illustrated by Hartzell in his paper “Economic Liberalization via IMF Structural Adjustment: Sowing the Seeds for Civil Wars” of 2010. He states that the measures, which were targeted at achieving a more liberal and equal