Can states buy peace? Social welfare spending and civil conflicts

Abstract

This study examines whether the state's ability to provide social welfare services has any major effect on the probability of civil conflict onset. We argue that welfare spending contributes to sustaining peace because the provision of social services reduces grievances by offsetting the effects of poverty and inequality in society. Welfare spending serves as an indication of the commitment of the government to social services and reflects its priorities and dedication to citizens. By enacting welfare policies that improve the living standards of citizens, governments can co-opt the political opposition and decrease the incentives for organizing a rebellion. Utilizing time-series, cross-national data for the 1975-2005 period, the results indicate that as the level of the government investment in welfare policies (i.e. education, health, and social security) increases, the likelihood of civil conflict onset declines significantly, controlling for several other covariates of internal conflict. Additional data analysis shows that general public spending and military expenditures are unlikely to increase or decrease the probability of civil unrest. Overall, these findings suggest that certain types of public spending, such as welfare spending, might have a strong pacifying effect on civil conflict, and therefore the state's welfare efforts are vital for the maintenance of peace.

Oil, Natural Gas, and Intrastate Conflict: Does Ownership Matter?

“…31 As noted by Halaby (2004:511), the random effect estimator is strongly influenced by cross sectional variance and underlies the assumption that unobserved heterogeneity is mean independent from the causal variable. 32 The choice of this time period was contingent on the availability of the welfare spending data from Taydas and Peksen (2012). 33 Regarding the control variables, per capita GDP is negatively associated with welfare spending, which is in line with previous findings (Ha 2008;Rudra and Haggard 2005).…”

“…Indeed, some authors show that natural resources such as hydrocarbons may increase social spending and internal stability (Morrison 2008). Welfare spending is found to reduce the probability of civil war onset (Taydas and Peksen 2012), and NOCs, in particular, are believed to support the building of strong welfare states (Marcel and Mitchell 2006). Furthermore, hydrocarbons are often employed when building up a large military apparatus and deploying coercion.…”

“…Unfortunately, a more detailed test of each of the presented causal mechanisms lies beyond the scope of this article and should be addressed by future research. However, given the strong findings linking resource production with social spending (for example, Morrison 2008) as well as welfare spending and intrastate conflict onset (for example, Taydas and Peksen 2012), it seems worthwhile to analyze whether differences in welfare spending patterns between diverging ownership structures may partially explain the findings reported earlier.…”

Ethnic fractionalization, natural resources and armed conflict

“…Results from quantitative studies point in different directions: while some authors have found a negative or curvilinear effect (e.g. Collier and Hoeffler, 2004;Ellingsen, 2000;Reynal-Querol, 2002), others have shown that fractionalization is positively associated with internal violence (Schneider and Wiesehomeier, 2008;Taydas and Peksen, 2012). A third group of scholars has found no relationship between ethnic fractionalization and armed conflicts (Fearon and Laitin, 2003;Østby et al, 2009).…”

“…Schneider and Wiesehomeier (2008) find that fractionalization can be linked to low-intensity intrastate conflicts in democracies (whereas this effect is insignificant for pure autocracies). A recent analysis by Taydas and Peksen (2012) finds a positive and significant association between ethnic fractionalization and civil conflict.…”