Overview
TA B L E 1.1
Security, economic, and political stresses
Stresses
Internal
External
Security
•
Legacies of violence and trauma
• • • • •
Invasion, occupation External support for domestic rebels Cross-border conflict spillovers Transnational terrorism International criminal networks
Economic
•
Low income levels, low opportunity cost of rebellion Youth unemployment Natural resource wealth Severe corruption Rapid urbanization
• •
Price shocks Climate change
Ethnic, religious, or regional competition Real or perceived discrimination Human rights abuses
•
Perceived global inequity and injustice in the treatment of ethnic or religious groups
• • • • • Justice
• •
Source: WDR team. Note: This table, although not exhaustive, captures major factors in the academic literature on the causes and correlates of conflict and raised in the WDR consultations and surveys.33
cial norms.32 New external pressures from climate change and natural resource competition could heighten all these risks.34 However, many countries face high unemployment, economic inequality, or pressure from organized crime networks but do not repeatedly succumb to widespread violence, and instead contain it. The WDR approach emphasizes that risk of conflict and violence in any society (national or regional) is the combination of the exposure to internal and external stresses and the strength of the “immune system,” or the social capability for coping with stress embodied in legitimate institutions.35 Both state and nonstate institutions are important. Institutions include social norms and behaviors—such as the ability of leaders to transcend sectarian and political differences and develop bargains, and of civil society to advocate for greater national and political cohesion—as well as rules, laws, and organizations.36 Where states, markets, and social institutions fail to provide basic security, justice, and economic opportunities for citizens, conflict can escalate. In short, countries and subnational areas with the weakest institutional legitimacy and governance are the most vulnerable to violence and instability and the least able to respond to internal and external stresses.
Institutional capacity and accountability are important for both political and criminal violence (see Feature 2).37 • In some areas—as in the peripheral regions of Colombia before the turn of the 21st century38 or the Democratic Republic of the Congo39 today—the state is all but absent from many parts of the country, and violent armed groups dominate local contests over power and resources. • Most areas affected by violence face deficits in their collaborative capacities40 to mediate conflict peacefully. In some countries, institutions do not span ethnic, regional, or religious divides, and state institutions have been viewed as partisan—just as they were for decades prior to the peace agreement in Northern Ireland.41 In some communities, social divisions have constrained effective collaboration between elite dominated states and poor communities to address sources of violence. • Rapid urbanization, as occurred earlier in Latin America and today in Asia and Africa, weakens social cohesion.42 Unemployment, structural inequalities, and greater access to markets for firearms and illicit drugs break down social cohesion and increase the vulnerability to criminal networks and gangs.
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