Peace Building and the Social Contract

New publication by Mansoob Murshed

ISS professor Mansoob Murshed has contributed a chapter to a new book entitled 'Securing Peace: State Building and Economic Development in Post-Conflict Countries' by Richard Kozul-Wright and Piergiuseppe Fortunato (eds) London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 71-86, July 2011.

Article summary

This article argues that greed and grievance are complementary explanations for civil war: the former may be better at explaining duration, the latter the onset but neither is sufficient on its own for the outbreak of civil war. An analysis of the failure of the social contract which manages conflict is required, and the article contains an outline of the political and economic dimensions pertaining to civil war risk in developing countries and peace building, including power sharing and fiscal decentralization.

Mansoob Murshed is Professor of the Economics of Conflict and Peace at ISS.