Conflict Resolution and Social Protection in an Era of Globalisation: External Dimensions to Europe's Social Policy

Globalisation has marginalised many nations in the South, there are systematic mechanisms via which this occurs. It has also raised inequality between nations, and polarised the world into rich and poor nations. Accompanying international economic marginalisation, a simultaneous growth in violent internal conflict has taken place in developing countries. From both the standpoint of common humanity and security considerations, the marginalising and unequalising effects of globalisation need to be abated via measures to protect the vulnerable. This will also help to stem the tide of internal conflict in the developing world. In this connection Europe, along with its policies and interventions, can be of value.     

The impact of civil war on foreign direct investment flows to developing countries

We investigate the impact of civil war on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries. We employ a new data-set that disaggregates FDI inflows to primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Second, we control for a richer set of economic and institutional variables that could determine FDI inflows including population, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the degree of trade openness, exchange rate variability, inflation, the governance structure of the host country using International Country Risk Guide data and its regime type using the POLITY autocracy–democracy data. We also address the reverse causality between FDI and conflict and the potential endogeneity of explanatory variables by employing dynamic system generalised method of moments (GMM) techniques in estimation. Our results indicate that primary sector FDI flows to developing countries are not significantly affected by civil war, whereas secondary and tertiary sectors FDI are more sensitive to such outbreak, potentially leading to reversals of existing FDI. Among institutional variables, government stability and control of corruption are more significant compared to regime type, law and order, and bureaucratic quality.     

Is Fiscal Decentralization Conflict Abating? Routine Violence and District Level Government in Java,Indonesia

Utilizing a newly created data set the authors examine the relationship between routine/everyday violence and fiscal decentralization in 98 districts of the Indonesian island of Java. By examining possible relationships between fiscal decentralization and routine violence, this paper fills a gap in the literature where the analysis of the relation between fiscal decentralization and violence is relatively scant. Routine violence, which is different from both civil war and ethno-communal conflict, centres around group brawls, popular justice or vigilante violence. Despite the uniform implementation of fiscal decentralization, subnational entities exhibit varying experiences with decentralization, but a common consequence is the increased size of local government. Fiscal decentralization, and the increased size of local government, can alleviate pent-up frustrations with a centralized state, as local government expenditure is seen to satisfy the needs of communities with which people identify more closely. The authors also find that the greater the share of locally generated revenues, the lower the number of violent incidents; but this capacity to generate more local revenues mainly lies in richer districts. Therefore, richer districts are likely to have a lower incidence of violence.     

Conflict in Africa: The Cost of Peaceful Behaviour

War provides economic opportunities, such as the capture ofvaluable natural resources, that are unavailable in peacetime.However, belligerents may prefer low-intensity conflict to totalwar when the former has a greater pay-off. This paper thereforeuses a two-actor model to capture the continuum from total warto complete peace that often characterises Africa's conflicts.This is in contrast to the existing literature, with its focuson mutually exclusive states of total war or complete peace,an assumption which is more relevant to Europe's inter-statewars than to Africa's civil wars. The paper also discusses waysto change the economic incentives of belligerents so that theirbehaviour becomes more peaceful.     

The conflict mitigating effects of trade in the India-Pakistan case

We examine whether greater inter-state trade, democracy and reduced military spending lower belligerence between India and Pakistan, beginning with a theoretical model covering the opportunity costs of conflict in terms of trade losses and security spending, as well as the costs of making concessions to rivals. Conflict between the two nations is best understood in a multivariate framework where variables such as economic performance, integration with rest of the world, bilateral trade, military expenditure, democracy orientation and population are simultaneously considered. Our empirical investigation based on time series econometrics from 1950 to 2005 suggests that reduced bilateral trade, greater military expenditure, less development expenditure, lower levels of democracy, lower growth rates and less general trade openness are all conflict enhancing. Globalization, or a greater openness to international trade with the rest of the world, is the most significant driver of a liberal peace, rather than a common democratic orientation.     

Spatial–Horizontal Inequality and the Maoist Insurgency in Nepal

The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is one of the highest intensity internal conflicts in recent times. Investigation into the causes of the conflict would suggest that grievance rather than greed is the main motivating force. The concept of horizontal or intergroup inequality, with both an ethnic and caste dimension, is highly relevant in explaining the Nepalese civil war. There is also a spatial aspect to the conflict, which is most intense in the most disadvantaged areas in terms of human development indicators and land holdings. Using the intensity of conflict (fatalities) as the dependent variable and HDI indicators and landlessness as explanatory variables, the authors find that the intensity of conflict across the districts of Nepal is significantly explained by the degree of inequalities.     

Foreign Direct Investments,Renewable Electricity Output,and Ecological Footprints: Do Financial Globalization Facilitate Renewable Energy Transition and Environmental Welfare in Bangladesh?

Asia-Pacific Financial Markets - Phasing out fossil fuel dependency to adopt renewable energy technologies is pertinent for both ensuring energy security and for safeguarding the well-being of the...     

Spillover effects of FDI inflows on output growth: An analysis of aggregate and disaggregated FDI inflows of 13 MENA economies

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on overall growth, as well as its sector-specific spillovers in the Middle Eastern and North African region during the period from 2000 to 2020. Our major innovation is our ability to disaggregate FDI into primary, secondary and tertiary and examine their individual impact on growth, as well as their sector-specific spillovers by using dynamic panel GMM methodology. We find prima facie evidence that total FDI significantly stimulates growth. However, when we turn to the disaggregated FDI data, primary sector FDI adversely affects the gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the service sector and overall GDP growth. On the other hand, secondary FDI has a ‘double-edged’ effect, benefiting its own sector (the service sector's GDP growth), but not other sectors. In contrast, service sector FDI stimulates GDP growth in mining, manufacturing and service sectors, thereby enhancing overall economic growth. Our findings have important policy implications regarding the incentives provided by governments to encourage FDI, which need to be fine-tuned to attract certain types of FDI (tertiary), with less focus on the primary sector