Economic Development, Inequality and War: Humanitarian Emergencies in Developing Countries

Economic Development, Inequality and War shows how economic decline, income inequality, pervasive rent seeking by ruling elites, political authoritarianism, military centrality and competition for mineral exports contribute to war and humanitarian emergencies. Economic regress and political decay bring about relative deprivation, perception by social groups of injustice arising from a growing discrepancy between what they expect and get. Nafziger and Auvinen indicate that both economic greed and social grievances drive contemporary civil wars. Finally, the authors also identify policies for preventing humanitarian emergencies.

E. WAYNE NAFZIGER is Distinguished Professor at Kansas State University, is co-editor of War, Hunger, and Displacement and The Prevention of Humanitarian Emergencies; author of numerous books and articles on development economics; and was researcher at the UN University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research, the Carter Center, the East-West Center, and in Nigeria, India, Japan, and Britain.

JUHA AUVINEN is Docent of International Politics at the University of Helsinki, is author of articles on conflict and security in several journals, including Third World Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution and World Development. He is working in the European Commission, Brussels, in charge of the design and management of Joint Actions in the field of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union.