In Pursuit of Development Political violence and development — Patricia Justino
People living in areas prone to, or affected by, conflict tend to suffer from many types of deprivation. Some scholars argue that conflict is an important driver of severe food crises and famines, and that undernutrition worsens in situations of prolonged conflicts and in countries and regions with weak institutional capacity. In recent years, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia are just some of the examples that have been used in the literature to illustrate the close linkages between social and political unrest on the one hand and poverty and hunger on the other.
But is there a clear-cut relationship between poverty and violent conflict? There appear to be numerous drivers of violence. These often include political, economic, social and environmental issues. While socio-economic inequalities can be a major cause of violence, other causes could include human rights abuses, perceived injustice, systemic corruption, and disagreements over the distribution of natural resources and who gets to benefit from such resources.
To discuss some of these issues, I am joined by Patricia Justino who is a development economist and a leading expert on political violence and development. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Households in Conflict Network and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton, UK.
We discussed the relationship between poverty and violent conflict, the work of the World Food Programme which received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and the political economy of war zones. We also discussed how the state or armed groups behave in predatory or conciliatory ways towards local populations, how civilians respond to these strategies, and how reports on political violence are produced and disseminated on social media.
- Patricia Justino's publications
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Host
Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)
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