Revisiting Opportunism in Civil Conflict: Natural Resource Extraction and Health Care Provision

• Date: 01 January 2022
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Justin Conrad,Liana Eustacia Reyes,Megan A. Stewart
• DOI: 10.1177/00220027211025597
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 66(1) 91 –114

Revisiting Opportunism

in Civil Conflict: Natural

Resource Extraction and

Health Care Provision

Justin Conrad

1

, Liana Eustacia Reyes

2

,

and Megan A. Stewart

3

Abstract

What is the relationship between natural resources and rebel governance? Previous

studies have argued that resource rich groups have fewer incentives to provide

social services. We argue, however, that even well-funded rebels may have incen-

tives to provide some social services to civilians. Specifically, rebel groups profiting

from the extraction of natural resources should be more likely to offer health care

services as a means of ensuring a dependable civilian workforce than groups who do

not profit from natural resources. Using data on both the extraction of natural

resources and social service provision by rebel groups, we find strong empirical

evidence to support our argument. We conclude with implications for scholars and

policymakers.

Keywords

natural resources, rebel governance, internal armed conflict, civil wars, resource

extraction, social service provision

1

Center for International Trade and Security, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

2

Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

3

School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Liana Eustacia Reyes, Department of Political Science, Rice University, 105 Herzstein Hall P.O. Box 1892,

6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005, USA.

Email: ler10@rice.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

ªThe Author(s) 2021

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Article

92 Journal of Conflict Resolution 66(1)

What is the relationship between natural resources and rebel governance?

1

Scholars

have argued that rebels who fund themselves through the exploitation of natural

resources have fewer incentives to build governance structures and treat civilians

well (Weinstein 2006).

2

As a result, rebels with access to natural resources are

unlikely to form governance institutions; instead, they are more likely to use violent

coercion or economic incentives to ensure civilian support and collaboration. This

theoretical framework, however, contrasts with observed empi rical realities. For

instance, during the Colombian civil war the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de

Colombia-Ej´ercito del Pueblo (FARC) derived significant revenue from the extrac-

tion of gold and coca (Masse and Munevar 2016; Leech 2011; Jimeno 2016; Wagner

2016). Counter to the conventional wisdom, the group also provided services to

civilians (Jimeno 2016). Likewise, during the Burundian civil war, the Conseil

National Pour la D´efensedelaD´emocratie—Forces pour la D´efense de la

D´emocratie (CNDD-FDD) gained direct control of coffee production and offered

limited social services to civilians (Oketch and Polzer 2002; Nindorera 2012). It

appears that even well-funded, resource-rich rebels may therefore have incentives to

provide such services.

3

In contrast to existing works, we argue that rebel groups profiting from the

extraction of natural resources are more likely to provide health care services rela-

tive to other rebel groups. When rebels gain access to natural resources, the

resources are not always readily available, they can be difficult to extract, and they

may require significant manual labor that the rebel group alone cannot provide. At

the same time, rebel groups may not fully understand how to convert raw natural

resources to marketable and profitable goods without the help of civilians who

already have local or practical insights into this process. For example, by controlling

a field of poppies, rebels do not immediately gain economic endowments from the

sale of opiates. The production of these narcotics requires local knowledge of the

land, manpower to cultivate and harvest poppies, and a general understanding of

how to manufacture, store, and sell refined opiates.

To unleash the economic potential of natural resources, rebels need civilians for

information and labor. We argue that rebels provide health care to civilians as a

means of facilitating civilian collaboration to profitable ends. The reason for this is

that the provision of health care offers a practical means of maintaining the pool of

actual and potential laborers in the conversion of natural resources to rents. Rather

than freeing a rebel group from reliance on the local civilian population, natural

resource extraction can actually deepen that reliance.

To examine our argument, we analyze data on rebel contraband (Walsh et al.

2018) and social service provision (Stewart 2018). With information on more than

fifty rebel groups across every region of the world between 1990 and 2003, we find

empirical evidence to support our argument. In fact, the odds that a rebel group will

provide health care services are more than four times higher if it extracts resources

than if it does not. The results of these analyses offer a new understanding of the

conditions under which rebels govern and provide social services.

2Journal of Conflict Resolution XX(X)