De link tussen rijkdom in natuurlijke grondstoffen en conflicten

Gestart door dudge, 15/07/2011 | 20:43 uur

dudge

Kwam vandaag een interesant verhaal tegen. Een discussie waarin ik regelmatig de stelling onderschrijf dat deze link bestaat, verlies ik vrijwel altijd. Dat komt mede door de kwaliteiten en kennis van mijn discussie genoten, maar onderstaand rapport geeft toch wel weer een nieuwe input aan deze discussie.
Het hele verhaal is hier te lezen: http://www.boell.de/downloads/Resources_and_Conflict.pdf

Samenvatting:
Abstract :   The links between conflict and the extraction of a given resource are not always so clear-cut, however, and a country's resource wealth does not necessarily lead to violent conflict, as the examples of Norway and Canada, but also Botswana and Chile show. Yet resource-rich countries do appear to be more susceptible to conflict than the resource-poor. This risk seems to be greatest when resource extraction accounts for a substantial proportion (around 30%) of GDP1: in other words, in countries which are largely dependent on the export of primary commodities such as metal ores, oil and gas. This does not apply to countries with major oil fields and a small population, such as Brunei, Dubai and Kuwait, which can use the substantial revenues generated by their oil exports to purchase social peace.

Yet in most resource dependent economically poor countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, resource extraction is linked to conflict. So the question is this: which role do natural resources play in conflicts?