The Oil Blessing: Reexamining Conflict in the Muslim World

<p>An influential conventional wisdom holds that oil causes intrastate conflict and that oil in particular explains the prevalence of domestic political violence in the Muslim world. I show that the relationship between oil and intrastate conflict in the empirical literature is more ambiguous than commonly assumed. I test to see if the various measures of the oil resource predict any dimension of intrastate conflict in the Muslim world. My results show oil resources are associated with lower levels of civil conflict, repression and terrorism in Muslim-majority countries. This supports the 'rentier state' perspective which states that regimes with significant oil resources mitigate conflict by strengthening the state relative to the populace and by distributing rent. Lastly, I argue the reasons for the concentration of conflict in Muslim world are not understood but the fact that Muslim 'rentier states' are able to effectively mitigate conflict offers some clues.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Wasif, Kumail

Contributors dc:contributor

• Joseph Szyliowicz, Ph.D.
• Lewis K. Griffith
• Andrea Stanton

• Civil war
• Intrastate conflict
• Muslim world
• Oil resources
• Repression
• Terrorism
• International and Area Studies

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1232

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-2232