The ‘resource curse’ hypothesis claims that abundance in natural resources, particularly oil, encourages especially civil war. Natural resources provide both motive and opportunity for conflict and create indirect institutional and economic causes of instability. Contrarily, the...

This article employs an innovative methodology to study causal mechanisms in the oil-conflict link by combining a systematic approach with taking into account country details. Engaging in a deductive test of causal mechanisms in a controlled comparison of four major oil exporters, results show...

Thus far, researchers working on ethnicity and resources as determinants of civil conflict have operated largely independently of each other. While there is plenty of evidence that natural resources may spur armed conflict, empirical evidence for the nexus between ethnic fractionalization and...