Conflict And Conflict In The Bottom Billion By John Collier

“The malady of many underdeveloped economies can be diagnosed as a stable equilibrium level of per capita income at or close to subsistence requirements. Only a small percentage, if any, of the economy’s income is directed towards net investment. If the capital stock is accumulating, population is rising at a rate equally fast i.e. thus the amount of capital equipment per worker is not increasing. If economic growth is defined as rising per capita income, these economies are not growing. They are caught in a low-level equilibrium trap.”

19. After reading this chapter, what do you believe are the two greatest obstacles preventing poor countries from becoming rich?

Why is it so difficult for the poorest societies to get to a foothold on the development ladder?

“The most widely accepted relationship between economic factors and civil war is that high-income nations are less likely to experience civil wars than low-income nations.” (Dixon 714). The disagreements over how to spend money and tax imported goods, and how territories should be distributed, cause this one nation to fight against each other.

Whilst raising money for African charities at school I developed an interest in global inequality and alternative policies that can help low-income nations escape the poverty trap. Reading ’23 Things’ by Ha-Joon Chang, I was intrigued by his view on blaming free-market policies like SAPs that exposed sub-Saharan Africa to international competition, slowing economic growth. Hence, this extended my research to the other side of the

First, I will explain the role of empowered institutions and countries in limiting the economic activities of developing countries, impeding on their ability to survive. Afterwards I will explain the obligation people in privileged positions have to improve the lives of those in compromised positions, at a certain degree of self-sacrifices. Finally, I will critically analyze and disprove the counter argument, which attempts to relieve us of the aforementioned duties, by discrediting the roles of institutions and developed countries in the prolongation of impoverishment.

  In Sub-Sahara Africa, during the last four decades thirty-five major armed conflicts have occurred, taking the lives of almost ten million people. There is a high correlation between the risk of conflict and a low ranking on the Human Development Index (HDI), due to the weak capacities and inability of these poor countries to guarantee the security of its citizens, rebellions and conflict have a high occurrence rate. United Nations has observed that conflicts

The United States is one of the strongest standing superpowers that have existed in the past few decades. Many people believe that the United States is declining from being a continuous super power; however according to Zakaria the United States is not declining. This is because they remain to have one of the strongest standing army, they have risen culturally, and economically the United States has been emerging enormously. According to Zakaria the United States has dominated the politics, and the culture in the 20th century, nonetheless he believes countries such as China, India, European Union, Russia, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, and Turkey will rise in the 21st century. Zakaria states “-industrial, financial, educational, social cultural- the distribution power is shifting, moving away from American Dominance” (5). Thus he is proving his point about how the power is shifting to the other 124 countries. Furthermore, Sachs Jeffery mentions the “poverty trap” and the many possible ways to help the countries that really need it. One way to help these under developed countries is by providing for these republics. The developed nations need to assist the poor economic states just enough so their living standards may rise. The United States doesn’t have a lot to worry about the “rise of the rest”, therefore helping countries under the poverty trap should still be aided by the developing nations, because countries such as the sub-Saharan African nations are under

Collier (2003) also argues that economic agendas appear to be central to understanding why civil wars start. Civil wars need both motive and opportunity incentives to start conflicts. However he argues that opportunities are more important in explaining conflicts than motives. I think the new trend to focus on the means of financing conflicts, coupled with the failure of rebel groups to articulate and achieve their objectives, have led to a discourse to find ‘rational’ arguments to dismiss the grievance factor of conflicts as explained by Arowobusoye (2005). I would argue that identity and ethnicity are major factors that are more accurate than the war economies in the instigation of civil wars.

Jeremy Williams published an article on the political factors of certain countries that tend to make them less developed. His article states that governments need to do lots of things to encourage development (Williams 2009). Countries need to build and maintain infrastructure and raise and spend finance wisely on the right projects (Williams 2009). When governments are inept at managing infrastructure, development is impossible (Williams 2009). This shows that for a country to obtain a more developed, wealthy, and established country, it must have a stabilized government. Africa’s government has been quite unstable throughout the years, which has caused it’s lack of wealth (Williams 2009). Another political factor that has affected the reason why Africa is less developed is the burden of a long term conflict (Williams 2009). Somalia for example, has been going through a raging war, which seems to be the main focus of the country, leaving no room for development (Williams

According to Collier, the first trap is the conflict trap. He claims that 73% in the bottom billion are in or have been in a war like conflict, almost always an internal civil war. Countries with high rates of poverty are more likely to break out in civil war and the war itself lowers incomes, therefore perpetuating the problem. This is partly due to the large amount of available young men who are out of work and ready for a rebellion and due to the weakness of the state, this becomes quite easy. The longer a country is at war, more actors become involved due to the potential of profiting of it. A civil war also increases the risk of future conflicts and according to Collier it is development in reverse. Economic loss and disease do not stop when the fighting does. Furthermore, during conflict, political rights disappear and almost all of the world’s hard drugs come from these areas due to little law enforcement. Low income, slow growth, and commodity export dependence make up the top three attributes of a high civil war risk country, which is hard to live down after it begins, since

The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier discusses why the poorest countries are failing and then offers some insights and solutions to the problem. He says the four major problems in developing nations are: conflict, natural resources, bad neighbors, and bad governments. The conflicts are usually civil wars which have huge costs and the situation just becomes worse the longer the conflicts drag on. Collier states that countries rich in natural resources are often worse off than countries that are not, he attributes this problem to several different factors. One of the factors is that the resources open the possibility for conflict over the resources. Another factor is that if a country strictly focuses it’s on a specific natural resource then the other resources and industries might get forgotten and lose value. Being landlocked with bad neighbors can also be a large problem because it makes it almost impossible to be a part of world trade, so these landlocked countries have to depend on their neighbors for most of the trade and materials. A bad government can also be very destructive to a country’s economy, if they create unreasonable and restrictive policies. The smaller countries are also at a disadvantage because it is hard for them to get any investors, because the investors would much rather invest in well-known countries like India or China. After Collier stated all the problems he also offered up some possible solutions. He believed that aid agencies should concentrate

Most of the developing countries are mired deeply in economical obstacles, which prevent them from development significantly. In order to overcome those embarrassments world’s society struggles to find the efficient solution for poor countries’ economies. Historically, developed countries undertook policy of giving aid to their colonies, afterwards by the end of The Second World War the United States and United Nations embarked the global sponsorship to the developing countries and countries of the Third World due to humanitarian considerations. Since then many other countries have joined in the effort to provide financial aid to lesser developed or poverty ridden countries. But none of those countries that received an aid had experienced a prosperity phase and rapid economic growth.

The first of the four traps is the conflict trap. Collier defines civil war, as a development in reverse, where not only the country itself suffers from the outcomes of war but the neighbouring countries are also affected because civil wars tend to spill into its neighbour’s territories. Collier provides economic data to show how civil wars impact economic development, in which he finds that “civil war tends to reduce growth by around 2.3 percent per year, so the typical seven-year war leaves a country around 15 percent poorer than it would have been.” He finds the two main causes of civil war linked to an economic context, comprising of low incomes and slow growth. Low income and civil war bounce off each other because just like civil wars reduce income, low income creates struggles that increase the chance of civil war. A number of studies that sought to identify the fundamental causes of civil conflict, conducted by four university economists from Oxford, Stanford and Yale, in which Paul Collier was one of the researches, concluded with similar results. Collier and Anke Hoeffler found that “countries which do not experience war are characterized by a per capita income that is more than five times higher than in countries in which wars broke out.” The other studies by James Fearon and David Latin, found that “in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, “$1,000 less in income corresponds to 36 percent greater odds of conflict outbreak.” The Final study by

Lack of development in countries in the so-called `Third World' has many political and economical reasons. Historians explain the inadequacy of developing countries with the early imperialism and the resulting colonization of the South. Exploitation of mineral resources, deforestation, slavery, and the adaptation of foreign policies shaped the picture of today's suffering and struggling civilizations and natural rich continents. The omission of concessions and equal negotiations between dependency and supremacy give rise to the contrast of enormous resources and immense poverty in developing countries is. In the last years the outcry of justice and the emancipation of the Third World became louder throughout developing and industrialized