Abstract
Civil wars in developing countries are amongst the most significant sources of human suffering in the world today. Although there are many political analyses of these emergencies, this text studies the economic, social, and political roots of humanitarian emergencies, identifying early measures to prevent such disasters. The chapters draw on a wide range of specialities on the political economy of war and on major conflicts to show the causes of conflict. This text here is the first of two volumes and it provides a general overview of the nature and causes of the emergencies, including economic, political, and environmental factors. Both volumes emphasize the significance of protracted economic stagnation and decline, government exclusion of distinct social groups, state failure, predatory rule, and high and increasing inequality, especially horizontal inequalities, or inequality among groups in access to political, economic, and social resources. They criticize beliefs recurrent in the literature that emergencies are the result of deteriorating environmental conditions or structural adjustment, or arise from ethnic animosities alone. Violent conflicts and state violence arise from the interaction of cultural, economic, and political factors. Following this analysis of the causes of war and genocide, the work points to policies that would help to prevent humanitarian emergencies in developing countries, which would be much less costly than the present strategy of the world community of spending millions of dollars annually to provide mediation, relief, and rehabilitation after the conflict occurs.
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