Insurgency and Ivory: The Territorial Origins of Illicit Resource Extraction in Civil Conflicts

• Author: Felix Haass
• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957682
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020957682

Comparative Political Studies

2021, Vol. 54(8) 1327 –1361

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957682

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Article

Insurgency and Ivory:

The Territorial Origins

of Illicit Resource

Extraction in Civil

Conflicts

Felix Haass1,2

Abstract

The presence of natural resources makes civil conflicts more likely to erupt,

last longer, and more difficult to end. Yet rebels do not always exploit

resources wherever they are present. Why? I argue that rebels extract more

resources when they compete with governments over territorial authority.

Territorial competition facilitates black market access, generates financial

pressure, and produces governance incentives for rebels to extract natural

resources. I test this proposition in a two-tiered research design. First, I show

globally that moderate territorial control predicts more resource extraction

by rebels. Subsequently, I focus on the example of ivory poaching which

offers a rare glimpse into the usually hidden resource extraction process.

I match spatially disaggregated conflict event data to subnational poaching

data in conflict-affected African countries. Results show that rebels seeking

territorial control substantially increase poaching rates. These findings

highlight the strategic conditions under which territorial competition shapes

rebel criminal behavior.

Keywords

natural resources, civil war, rebel governance, ivory poaching

1German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Germany

2University of Osnabrueck, Hamburg, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Felix Haass, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Neuer Jungfernstieg 21,

20354 Hamburg, Germany.

Email: felix.haass@uni-osnabrueck.de

957682CPSXXX10.1177/0010414020957682Comparative Political StudiesHaass

research-article2020

1328 Comparative Political Studies 54(8)

Introduction

When do rebel groups extract natural resources during civil conflicts? An

extensive literature links rebels’ exploitation of lootable natural resources to

armed conflict. When insurgents can mine and sell diamonds, profit from

cocaine processed from coca plants, or harvest and smuggle timber, conflicts

are more likely to erupt, last longer, and are much more difficult to end.1

Although precise estimates are difficult to obtain, the protracted conflicts

these resources help finance kill thousands of civilians and combatants alike

(Gates et al., 2012). Moreover, resource extraction incurs enormous ecologi-

cal costs, such as toxic contaminants from mining chemicals, large-scale

deforestation from illegal logging, or population-threatening hunting of high-

value wildlife (Daskin & Pringle, 2018; Gaynor et al., 2016).

Existing research, however, often assumes that when resources are present,

rebels will exploit these resources when they have an opportunity to do so.2

Yet rebels do not automatically loot resources over the course of a conflict:

almost 20% of all rebel groups between 1990 and 2012 initiated or ended at

least one type of resource extraction over the course of a conflict.3 Why?

I argue that insurgents extract resources as a consequence of their armed

struggle against a government over territorial authority. When rebels lack ter-

ritorial control, they also lack the necessary market access to start extracting

resources. Alternatively, without income or civilian support structures gener-

ated at least partially through resource extraction it is difficult for rebels to

firmly establish territorial control. Instead, it is when rebels actively compete

with a government to establish political authority over territory that they

intensify resource extraction.

I identify three mechanisms that drive the link between territorial competi-

tion and resource extraction. First, territorial competition erodes borders and

undermines law enforcement, enabling easier access to black markets where

rebels can sell or smuggle illicit goods. Second, rebels who compete with a

government over territory have organizational pressure to finance increas-

ingly expensive warfare. And third, insurgents seeking political authority

over territory can use illicit resource extraction as a governance strategy to

generate civilian cooperation. Together, these mechanisms imply that higher

levels of territorial competition should lead to more extensive resource

extraction by rebels.

I test this proposition in a two-tiered research design. In a macro setting, I

first test my main hypothesis by combining data on rebel groups’ level of ter-

ritorial control with information on rebel funding from natural resources,

using a global sample of 270 rebel groups between 1989 and 2012

(Cunningham et al., 2013; Walsh et al., 2018). Second, to investigate the

Haass 1329

proposed causal mechanisms in greater detail, I turn to a micro-level analysis

of territorial competition and illegal ivory poaching in Africa.

Ivory poaching is uniquely suited for studying the mechanisms of the

competition-extraction link, since it is a rare type of resource where we have

direct evidence on the extraction process itself. Resource extraction by rebels

is usually hidden from outside observers. This makes it extremely difficult to

empirically test theories that link conflict and resource extraction. To over-

come this challenge, I use an original data source that allows me to capture

poaching rates directly: the Monitoring of Illegally Killed Elephants (MIKE)

program under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that collects annual poaching rates across

the African continent (CITES, 1999).

I match the spatial extent of MIKE monitoring sites to data on the geo-

graphic location of conflict events from the Armed Conflict Location and

Event Dataset (ACLED) (Raleigh et al., 2010). To distinguish territorial com-

petition from regular battlefield violence, I consider a subset of ACLED

events, such as territory acquisition or headquarter establishment. I control

for a wide range of conflict variables as well as site fixed effects to disen-

tangle the competition-extraction relationship from alternative explanations,

such as battlefield violence and state failure.

Results from both the macro- and micro analysis are consistent with my

expectation that territorial competition increases rebels’ level of resource

extraction. I show in the macro-level analysis that rebels across the globe

engage in more illegal resource exploitation when they hold moderate levels

of territory. In the micro-level setting, I document evidence that rebels who

compete with a government over the strategic control of territory increase

poaching rates by 9% to 36%. Crucially the effect of territorial competition

events on poaching rates is much stronger than the effect of all conflict events,

suggesting that the effect is driven by territorial competition instead of general

instability due to conflict. I also report conditional effects in support of the

market access, financial, and governance mechanisms specified above.

This paper helps to fill a blind spot of research on civil conflict and lootable

natural resources. Previous research largely assumes resource endowments are

exogenously given and proceeds to study the consequences of natural resources

on civil conflict onset, duration, or termination.4 I relax this assumption by

endogenizing rebels’ choice to illegally exploit resources. This allows me to

unpack the causal pathway between resource presence and exploitation. Future

research on the resources-conflict link needs to take this pathway into account

to fully understand the conditions under which resources lead to conflict.

This study also contributes to the growing body of research on rebel gov-

ernance in conflict zones (Arjona et al., 2015; Stewart, 2018). My theory, in