No Extraction Without Representation: The Ethno-Regional Oil Curse and Secessionist Conflict

In Natural Resources, Inequality and Conflict, eds. Hamid E. Ali and Lars-Erik Cederman. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 37–69.

A large body of literature claims that oil production increases the risk of civil war. However, a growing number of skeptics argue that the oil‐conflict link is not causal, but merely an artifact of flawed research designs. This chapter reevaluates whether–and where–oil causes conflict by employing a novel identification strategy based on the geological determinants of hydrocarbon reserves. We employ geospatial data on the location of sedimentary basins as a new spatially disaggregated instrument for petroleum production. Combined with newly collected data on oil field locations, this approach allows investigating the causal effect of oil on conflict at the national and sub‐national levels. Contrary to the recent criticism, we find that previous work has underestimated the magnitude of the conflict‐inducing effect of oil production. Our results indicate that oil has a large and robust effect on the likelihood of secessionist conflict, especially if it is produced in populated areas. In contrast, oil production does not appear to be linked to center‐seeking civil wars. Moreover, we find considerable evidence in favor of an ethno‐regional explanation of this link. Oil production significantly increases the risk of armed secessionism if it occurs in the settlement areas of ethnic minorities.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73558-6_3

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-73558-6_3

Pengl, Yannick, and Lars-Erik Cederman. 2022. “No Extraction Without Representation: The Ethno-Regional Oil Curse and Secessionist Conflict.” In Natural Resources, Inequality and Conflict, eds. Hamid E. Ali and Lars-Erik Cederman. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 37–69.

@Inbook{no-extraction-without-representation-inbook,
   author = {Pengl, Yannick and Cederman, Lars-Erik},
   editor = {Ali, Hamid E. and Cederman, Lars-Erik},
   title = {No Extraction Without Representation: The Ethno-Regional Oil Curse and Secessionist Conflict},
   bookTitle = {Natural Resources, Inequality and Conflict},
   year = {2022},
   publisher = {Springer International Publishing},
   address = {Cham},
   pages = {37--69},
   abstract = {A large body of literature claims that oil production increases the risk of civil war. However, a growing number of skeptics argue that the oil-conflict link is not causal, but merely an artifact of flawed research designs. This chapter reevaluates whether--and where--oil causes conflict by employing a novel identification strategy based on the geological determinants of hydrocarbon reserves. We employ geospatial data on the location of sedimentary basins as a new spatially disaggregated instrument for petroleum production. Combined with newly collected data on oil field locations, this approach allows investigating the causal effect of oil on conflict at the national and sub-national levels. Contrary to the recent criticism, we find that previous work has underestimated the magnitude of the conflict-inducing effect of oil production. Our results indicate that oil has a large and robust effect on the likelihood of secessionist conflict, especially if it is produced in populated areas. In contrast, oil production does not appear to be linked to center-seeking civil wars. Moreover, we find considerable evidence in favor of an ethno-regional explanation of this link. Oil production significantly increases the risk of armed secessionism if it occurs in the settlement areas of ethnic minorities.},
   isbn = {978-3-030-73558-6},
   doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-73558-6_3},
   url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73558-6_3}
}