Conflicts have complex causes rooted in history, domestic governance, economic circumstances, and international relations.

The resolution of any conflict must therefore attend to its specifics and the context in which a settlement is to be reached. This chapter reviews economic and resource-related causes of conflicts.

The end of the Cold War marked a decline in the number of armed conflicts, after a steady rise since the Second World War (Human Security Report, 2005). Prior to the 1990s, the economic agenda for conflict resolution mostly consisted of resolving the inequities of colonialism and ending domestic and internationalized struggles over the spoils of independence. Curtailing foreign financial support by Cold War sponsors and regional powers such as South Africa and Libya was a major challenge left unaddressed by a paralyzed international system. Since the early 1990s, the economic dimensions of conflicts have been rethought. Globalization, transition from socialist regimes, the commercialization of war, and the rise of ‘warlordism’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘humanitarian interventions’ have renewed economic perspectives on conflicts (Duffield, 1994; Chingono, 1996; Jean and Rufin, 1996; Keen, 1998; Kaldor, 1999; Reno, 1999; Berdal and Malone, 2000).¹ Economically focused responses flourished, such as economic sanction regimes, often with mixed results (Nitzschke and Studdard, 2005). The first section of this chapter discusses major possible economic causes of conflict, such as poverty and inequality. The second examines three perspectives linking resources and conflicts.

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